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BV    4541    .C6    1890  ^ 

Clokey,    Joseph  W.    1890-1960 
Dying   at   the   top 


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Dying"  AT  the  Top; 


OR, 


The  Moral  and  Spiritual  Condition  of 
the  Young  Men  of  America. 


BY 


REV.  JOSEPH  WADDELL  CLOKEY,  D.D., 


PASTOR    OF   THE 


FIRST   PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH 

OF  NEW  ALBANY,  INDIANA. 


REVISED    AND     EMMI^ARQED. 


Price:     F>aper,  25  Cents;     Clotti,  SO  Cents. 


"There  is  nothing  covered  that  shall 
not  be  revealed." — Christ. 


YOUNG  MENU'S  ERApPb@LiSHING  CO., 

^  10  ARCADE  COURT,  CmCAGO,  ILL, 

10  Arcftfte  CourfT^ 
CHICAGO,  -  -  ILLINOISi^ 


CONTENTS. 


Dedication  ._.------.. . ..........._..._  5 

Preface ..._ 6 

Apology . -_  --...... --..— 7 

At  the  Top 15 

Dying 20 

Dead 32 

Waste 44 

Worms  Beneath  the  Bark    57 

Heredity, _ 60 

Home, 64 

A  Secularized  Sabbath, 69 

The  Saloon, 72 

The  Bagnio 80 

Hope - 98 

A  Word  to  the  Wise „ .- ..— 108 


DEDICATION. 


To  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  the 
United  States,  whose  work  constitutes  one  of  the  great- 
est movements  of  this  great  century,  this  Book  is  dedi- 
cated, in  the  hope  that  the  facts  presented  in  it  may- 
stimulate  its  members  to  a  still  greater  zeal  in  the  re- 
deeming of  young  men  to  the  morality  and  faith  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

J.  W.  Clokey. 


PREFACE. 


The  original  form  of  this  work  was  an  address  de- 
livered  before  the  Indiana  State  Sunday  School  Union^ 
at  its  convention  in  Columbus,  Ind.,  held  June  21,  22  and 
23,  1887.  The  address,  published  in  the  proceedings  of 
the  convention,  and  delivered  subsequently  in  different 
places,  has  awakened  so  much  interest  by  the  facts  it 
presents,  that  it  has  been  thought  advisable  to  enlarge 
it,  and  issue  it  in  a  form  for  general  circulation.  The 
title,  Dying  at  the  Top,  was  the  outgrowth  of  a  real 
heart-sorrow.  In  my  yard  at  home  stands  what  is  left 
of  a  favorite  apricot  tree.  For  years  it  had  stood  there, 
the  very  symbol  of  life  and  vigor.  Its  beautiful  blossoms 
were  among  the  earliest  harbingers  of  spring,  and  the 
fruit  that  soon  followed  the  falling  of  the  bloom,  was  de- 
licious in  the  extreme.  The  tree  was  our  pride  and  de- 
light. But  one  day  I  saw  that  the  very  topmost  branches 
had  withered;  and  I  said, "Ah,  our  apricot  is  death-smit- 
ten ;  it  is  dying  at  the  top','  These  top  branches  were 
cut  off,  but  the  next  season  the  next  highest  withered. 
And  now  there  is  not  enough  life  left  in  the  tree  to  ma- 
ture what  few  blossoms  it  puts  forth.  On  examination 
worms  were  found  at  the  root ;  they  had  worked  their 
way  up  under  the  bark,  and  though  the  outside  seemed 
firm  and  healthy,  the  tree  was  almost  girdled  by  the  un- 
seen pests,  and  death  was  inevitable. 

From  the  dying  of  the  tree-top  came  the  theme,  and 
from  the  theme  came  the  following  pages.  Before  me 
now  stands  the  Human  Tree,  and  it  is  with  a  sadness 
approaching  dejection,  that  I  say :    "//  is  dying  at  the 

top: 


APOLOGY. 

This  little  work  has  now  been  before  the  public  for 
a  year.  The  number  of  copies  sold  has  not  been  very 
great,  but  there  is  evidence  that  those  that  have  been 
sold  have  been  widely  circulated.  They  have  gone  into 
every  State  in  the  Union;  and  been  everywhere  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  are  best  able  to  judge  of  the  truth- 
fulness of  the  statements  made. 

The  author,  in  giving  the  work  to  the  world,  did  it 
with  much  hesitation,  knowing  how  liable  statistics  are 
to  err;  and  how  often  the  facts  gathered  from  a  few 
communities  may  not  prove  to  be  true  of  the  country  at 
large. 

At  the  present  writing,  the  saddest  thing  about  the 
work  is  that  it  has  told  the  truthful  story  of  the  whole 
land.  Not  a  single  person  has  arisen  to  deny  its  cor- 
rectness; while  from  Maine  to  California,  and  from  Ore- 
gon to  Florida,  letter  after  letter  has  come,  saying  "  It  is 
all  true. "  If  it  is  all  true,  and  true  everywhere,  then 
American  society,  from  ocean  to  ocean,  is  suspended 
over  an  abyss,  and  it  will  require  the  engineering  skill  of 
the  best  elements  in  Church  and  State  to  keep  us  from 
falling  into  depths  of  distress  along  side  of  which  the 
taxation  of  England,  in  the  old  colonial  days,  and  the 
slavery  of  the  South,  were  but  baubles. 

The  troubles  growing  up  between  nation  and  nation, 
and  State  and  State,  over  their  material  relations,  have 
been  to  a  great  extent  the  incidents  of  human  progress, 
where  the  strong  body  of  our  national  manhood  has 
been  throwing  off  the  shackles  of  its  old-time  bondage. 
But  corruption  in  the  morals  of  our  people  is  the  incident 
of  a  deep-seated  disease,  whose  cancerous  properties  will 
sooner  or  later  bring  us  into  troubles  worse  than  war  or 
oppression,  unless  we  correct  them. 


Tiii  Apology, 

When  dangers  exist  in  our  domestic  or  national  life, 
it  IS  the  duty  of  the  true  citizen  to  point  them  out.  If 
our  neighbor's  property  is  threatened  with  the  flames,  we 
will  be  guilty  of  incendiarism  if  we  do  not  cry  "  Fire  ! 
Fire  ! "  If  the  lives  of  our  fellow  citizens  are  in  jeopardy, 
we  are  in  spirit  murderers  if  we  lift  no  voice  of  alarm;  and 
if  there  is  a  condition  of  morals  and  manners  among  any 
classes  of  our  people,  threatening  the  prosperity  and  per- 
manency of  the  Republic,  we  are  not  patriots  if  we  hold 
our  peace. 

"  Dying  at  the  Top  "  is  a  cry  of  alarm.  Perhaps  the 
cry  is  a  too  noisy  one  for  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
moving  delicately.  But  is  it  not  better  for  all  that  an 
alarm  be  raised  than  that  we  should  be  silent  in  the  pres- 
ence of  danger  ? 

Two  objections  have  been  urged  against  this  work, 
and  they  are  noticed  here  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be 
removed.     The  first  is  that  it  touches  on  the  social  evil. 

But  why  should  licentiousness  be  exempted  from  ex- 
posure? Is  it  no  serious  evil?  Is  it  a  social  disease 
that  will  correct  itself  if  it  is  let  alone  ?  Are  its  dangers 
not  to  be  met  and  mastered  in  the  same  way  that  other 
immoralities  have  been  met  and  mastered  ? 

The  history  of  reform  has  shown  that  no  iniquity 
has  ever  been  subdued  till  the  facts  connected  with  it 
were  torn  from  their  secrecy  and  laid  open  to  the  gaze 
of  the  world.  The  reformation  of  the  i6th  century  was 
made  possible  only  because  the  reformers  of  France  and 
Germany  told  to  all  mankind  the  secret  doings  of  the 
papacy,  in  its  sale  of  indulgences,  in  its  inquisitions  and 
autos-da-f(6,  and  in  the  horrible  transactions  of  a  cor- 
rupted priesthood  in  the  nunneries  and  monasteries  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  literature  of  three  and  four  hun- 
dred years  ago  is  full  of  revelations  that  would  make  the 
prudishly  pure  of  our  day  blush,  but  which  did  their 
work  in  bringing  to  the  knowledge  of  the  people  the 
dangers  that  underlay  all  European  society. 

The  history  of  the  Reformation  in  England  under 


Apology.  ix 

the  Wesleys  Is  the  history  of  the  exposure  of  the  excesses 
of  the  day,  and  the  consequent  re-action  against  theni. 
One  of  Great  Britain's  noble  charities  is  found  in  her 
"  Ragged  Schools."  These  schools  originated  with  Dr. 
Guthrie,  who  first  himself  went  down  among  the  wretched 
haunts  and  homes  of  the  poor  of  Edinburg,  and  then 
startled  his  country  by  relating  what  he  discovered  of  the 
squalor  and  vice  of  masses  of  the  people. 

The  secret  of  the  power  of  the  writings  of  Charles 
Dickens  lies  in  his  opening  to  the  sunlight  the  wrongs 
perpetrated  on  children  and  on  the  laboring  classes  in  the 
name  of  education  and  employment. 

The  sensitive  people  of  this  country  were  greatly 
shocked  at  the  revelations  made  some  time  since  in  the 
Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  London,  of  corruptions  among  cer- 
tain of  the  English  nobility.  W.  L.  Stead,  the  editor, 
was  thought  to  be  a  species  of  monster  who  was  ready 
to  cast  upon  society  any  obscene  material,  provided  it 
would  contribute  to  his  exchequer.  But  after  the  first 
excitement  had  subsided,  and  we  were  willing  to  be  rea- 
sonable in  our  judgment,  the  reading  public  learned  two 
things.  First,  that  Mr.  Stead  was  a  great  philanthro- 
pist, and  that  it  was  in  the  interest  of  suffering  humanity 
that  he  unearthed  and  exposed  those  dreadful  scandals. 
He  says  of  himself  in  '*  Books  which  have  Influenced  Me ": 
"I  have  never  ceased  for  one  moment  to  rejoice  that  I  was 
a  journalist,  and  at  the  same  time  to  feel  weighed  down 
with  a  sense  of  my  utter  incapacity  to  even  approach 
the  ideal  of  a  journalist's  mission  in  these  later  days. 
What  is  that  mission  ?  Let  Victor  Hugo  speak.  He  is 
describing  what  Gwymplaine  said  to  himself  when  he 
accepted  his  position  as  peer:  'The  people  are  silence. 
I  shall  be  the  advocate  of  that  silence.  I  will  speak  for 
the  dumb.  I  will  speak  of  the  small  to  the  great,  and 
of  the  feeble  to  the  strong.  That  is  the  aim  of  my  des- 
tiny. .  .  I  am  predestinated.  I  have  a  mission.  I 
shall  be  lord  of  the  poor.  I  shall  speak  for  the  despair- 
ing, silent   ones.     I  shall  interpret  this  stammering;  I 


X  Apology. 

shall  interpret  the  grumblings,  the  murmurings,  the  tu- 
mults of  the  crowds,  the  complaints  ill-pronounced,  the 
unintelligible  voices,  and  all  these  cries  of  beasts  that, 
through  ignorance  and  through  suffering,  man  is  forced 
to  utter.  ...  I  will  be  the  word  to  the  people.  I 
will  be  the  bleeding  mouth  whence  the  gag  is  snatched 
out.     I  will  speak  everything.'" 

W.  L.  Stead  spoke  "  everything  "  for  the  "  despairing, 
silent  ones,"  and  society  soon  learned  a  second  thing,  that 
the  English  Parliament  had  heard  his  cries  and  come  to 
the  relief  of  England's  unprotected  girls.  To-day  they 
are  guarded  by  vigilant  laws  as  they  have  never  before 
been,  and  philanthropic  women  are  watchini>-  with  re- 
newed vigilance  to  break  up  the  once  almost  unnoticed 
and  unchallenged  traffic  in  young  girls,  which  was  car- 
ried on  between  England  and  the  Continent  of  Europe. 

The  writer  of  this  work  does  not  plead  for  the  pub- 
lication of  the  minute  details  of  any  vice;  only  that  the 
vice  should  be  recognized  and  properly  exposed  from 
all  those  places  where  truth  told  can  be  made  to  prevail. 

The  sensitiveness  that  takes  offense  at  such  expo- 
sures needs  to  be  reconstructed.  It  is  not  a  mark  either 
of  depth  or  purity  of  character.  Show  me  an  audience 
where  the  people  exchange  glances  and  shrug  their 
shoulders,  and  look  sour  when  the  speaker  utters  his 
earnest  words  against  uncleaimess  of  life,  and  I  will  show 
you  a  people  who  have  a  far  greater  experimental  knowl- 
edge of  certain  nameless  sins  than  they  would  dare  to 
make  pubhc. 

Strong  men  and  women  who  are  conscious  of  their 
personal  integrity,  and  who  crave  to  know  where  a  vice 
lurks  that  they  may  the  better  smite  it,  can  listen  with 
dignity  to  any  delicate  disclosure  of  sin,  and  pass  out 
without  any  sense  of  injury. 

There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the  90th  Psalm : 
"Thou  hast  set  our  iniquities  before  Thee,  our  secret  sins 
in  the  light  of  Thy  countenance."  The  vices  of  society 
are  "  in  the  light  of  God's  countenance,"  and  instead  of 
spending  His  time  blushing  and  looking  ashamed,  He 


Apology,  xi 

flies  to  our  rescue  in  the  gift  of  His  own  dear  Son.  And 
so  we  should  consent  to  have  the  sins  of  the  world 
brought  into  the  light  of  our  countenance  and  kept  there, 
until  by  breaking  our  bodies  and  shedding  our  blood,  we 
blot  the  facts  of  vice  out  of  our  sight  by  blotting  out  the 
vice  itself. 

In  giving  **  Dying  at  the  Top"  to  the  world,  the 
author  has  been  called  a  "  pessimist."  A  pessimist, 
according  to  the  popular  understanding  of  the  word,  is  a 
man  of  sour  and  gloomy  turn  of  mind,  who  seeks  no 
sunspots  in  life,  but  gropes  round  among  its  shadows 
and  sewers,  bringing  to  the  light  of  day  dark  and 
wretched  doings  which  really  have  no  serious  bearing  on 
social  and  national  life,  but  which  he  thinks  are  omens  of 
coming  disaster.  He  is  a  mole,  burrowing  under  the 
ground,  unconscious  of  God's  bright  and  glorious  world 
above;  a  bat  that  shuts  itself  away  in  some  corner,  and 
flaps  its  wings  only  when  night's  shadows  are  over  the 
world;  an  owl,  silent  in  the  glory  of  reigning  day,  and 
hooting  its  dismal  prophesies  out  of  the  darkness.  An 
"optimist,"  by  the  same  popular  interpretation, is  a  bright, 
cheerful  soul,  who  keeps  his  face  and  his  soul  always  in 
the  light  of  God's  countenance;  who  finds  nothing  but 
hope  everywhere  and  in  everything;  who  reasons  that 
God  reigns,  and  God  knows  how  to  run  a  world  so  as 
to  make  all  things  work  together  for  the  good  of  His  crea- 
tures ;  who  turns  his  face  away  from  the  hidden  thing 
of  darkness,  refusing  to  think  of  them  or  tell  others  of 
them,  because  there  is  no  real  danger  in  them.  With 
him  health  alone  is  catching,  and  purity  and  holiness 
hold  the  key  to  the  situation.  He  is  a  lark,  up  by  the 
earliest  dawn,  to  soar  high  in  heaven's  pure  air,  and  to 
sing  his  sweet  notes  far  out  of  and  above  these  doleful 
and  dismal  things  of  earth.  He  is  an  eagle,  whose  eye  is 
fixed  on  the  sky,  and  which,  mounting  from  crag  to  crag, 
from  high  in  the  air  spreads  its  splendid  wings  for  the 
bosom  of  the  sun. 

A  genuine  pessimist  is  one  who,  after  he  has  looked 
on  all  sides  of  the  facts  and  problems  of  the  hour,  con- 


xii  Afology, 

dudes  that  the  trend  of  events  is,  on  the  surface  and  in 
the  depths  of  human  society,  toward  the  darkness.  He 
sees  no  reason  for  hope ;  hence  his  song  is  a  doleful 
one,  the  outcome  of  a  soul  in  trouble  and  despair.  The 
true  optimist  is  one  who,  after  taking  the  same  general 
view  of  events,  sees  both  in  the  depths  and  on  the  sur- 
face evidence  that  the  world  is  growing  better  every  day. 
He  rises  from  the  study  of  even  the  darkest  pages  of  the 
day  with  hope.  He  says  the  Christ  has  proved  the 
Master  in  a  thousand  crises  and  He  will  prove  Master  in 
this.  With  his  face  turned  full  on  the  doings  of  the 
papacy  and  the  saloon  and  the  anarchist ;  with  the  full 
knowledge  of  the  perils  of  the  modern  city,  of  emigra- 
tion, of  the  corporation  and  of  trusts,  he  still  says  with 
Galileo,  "The  world  does  move."  In  this  definition  of 
terms,  the  writer  is  a  decided  optimist.  On  the  top  of 
that  long  train  of  freight  cars,  a  young  man  is  running 
backward,  and  if  he  keeps  on  running,  he  will  plunge  off 
the  end  of  the  train  and  be  ruined.  But  the  train  thun- 
ders on;  immense  products  thunder  on  with  it;  even  the 
young  brakesman  on  the  top  moves  forward  faster  than 
he  does  backward,  and  when  he  falls,  falls  farther  ahead. 
Human  society  is  this  moving  train.  Not  for  a  moment, 
in  the  long  records  of  the  past,  has  its  wheels  ceased  or 
turned  to  move  backward,  and  whilst  thousands  to-day 
resist  the  power  of  the  onward  movement  and  become 
vicious  in  their  lives,  even  they  fall  farther  forward  than 
the  vicious  of  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  ago.  The 
cruelties  of  the  old  Roman  amphi-theatres  are  gone,  never 
to  return.  Men  and  beasts  are  no  longer  fattened  to 
slaughter  one  another  for  the  amusement  of  fine  socie- 
ties. Splendid  paganism  lives  only  in  the  ruins  of  its 
Pantheon  and  Parthenon.  Its  mythic  deities  are  silent 
on  Olympus,  while  the  Cross  stands  in  the  centre  of  the 
Colosseum,  and  the  voice  and  songs  of  the  Christian 
missionary  are  heard  where  Jove  hurled  his  thunder- 
bolts and  Saturn  shook  the  trident  of  the  seas.  In 
modern  Europe  an  inquisition  is  impossible.  The  world 
to-day   sees  the  thumb-screw  and  the  stocks  only    in 


Apology.  xiii 

some  Eden  Musee,  where  the  horrors  of  the  by-gones 
are  exhibited  in  figures  of  plaster-of-Paris  to  remind  the 
present  that  torture  for  honest  convictions  had  ever 
existed. 

The  low  forms  of  amusement  and  vice  that,  even  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  flung  defiance  before  an 
offended  public,  to-day  exist  in  concealment,  and  are  in- 
dulged in,  in  dread  of  the  supreme  fiat  of  Law.  Lecky,in 
speaking  of  the  coarseness  of  manners  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  England,  says:  "Each  king  lived  public-ly  with 
his  mistresses,  and  the  immorality  of  their  courts  was  ac- 
companied by  nothing  of  that  refinement  or  grace  which 
has  often  cast  a  softening  veil  over  much  deeper  and 
more  general  corruption." 

A  queen  like  that  of  George  II.  is  not  possible  to- 
day at  the  Court  of  England,  who,  though  virtuous 
herself,  "passed  through  life  jesting  on  the  vices  of  her 
husband  and  of  his  ministers,  with  the  coarseness  of  a 
trooper,  receiving  from  her  husband  the  earliest  and 
fullest  accounts  of  every  new  love  affair  in  which  he 
was  engaged,  and  prepared  to  welcome  each  new 
mistress,  provided  only  she  could  herself  keep  the  first 
place  in  his  judgment  and  confidence." 

The  young  men  of  to-day,  though  reckless,  are  re- 
spectable in  their  amusements  along  side  of  those  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  Bull-baiting,  bear- 
baiting  and  cock-fighting  were  the  open  every-day  enter- 
tainment of  the  youth  of  all  classes  in  society.  What 
would  we  think  now  of  such  an  advertisement  as  this,, 
which  was  common  in  London  at  the  beginning  of  the 
1 8th  century?  "A  mad  bull  to  be  dressed  up  with  fire- 
works and  turned  loose  in  the  game  place,  a  dog  to  be 
dressed  up  with  fire-works  over  him,  a  bear  to  be  let 
loose  at  the  same  time,  and  a  cat  to  be  tied  to  the  bull's 
tail;  a  mad  bull  dressed  up  with  fire-works  to  be  baited." 
In  1 71 2,  in  London,  young  men  from  the  nobility 
organized  a  club,  and  called  themselves  the  "  mohawks." 
Lecky  says  of  them  that  "  they  were  accustomed  to  sally 
out  drunk  into  the  streets  to  hunt  the  passers-by  and 
to  subject  them  in  mere  wantonness  to  the  most  atrocious 


xiv  Apology. 

outrages.  One  of  their  favorite  amusements,  called  *tip- 
ping  the  lion/  was  to  squeeze  the  nose  of  their  victim 
flat  upon  his  face  and  to  bore  out  his  eyes  with  their 
fingers.  Among  them  were  the  *  sweaters,*  who  formed 
a  circle  round  their  prisoner  and  pricked  him  with  their 
swords  till  he  sank  exhausted  to  the  ground;  the  'dancing 
masters,*  so  called  from  their  skill  in  making  men  caper 
by  thrusting  swords  into  their  legs;  the  'tumblers/ 
whose  favorite  amusement  was  to  set  women  on  their 
heads  and  commit  various  indecencies  and  barbarities  on 
the  limbs  that  were  exposed.  Maid-servants,  as  they 
opened  their  masters'  doors,  were  waylaid,  beaten,  and 
their  faces  cut.  Matrons,  inclosed  in  barrels,  were 
rolled  down  the  steep  and  stony  incline  of  Snow  Hill. 
Watchmen  were  unmercifully  beaten  and  their  noses 
sHt.** 

When  one  reads  such  accounts  as  these,  given  both 
by  Lecky  and  McCarthy,  he  turns  to  his  own  times  with 
comfort,  and  even  with  the  recklessness  of  our  American 
youth  before  him,  thanks  God  that  his  day  is  the  best 
day  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

So  the  author  sends  this  little  work  to  the  world 
with  his  face  towards  the  sunshine,  assured  that  the 
forces  are  present  with  us  to  conquer  our  country  for 
Christ,  provided  the  facts  are  made  known  and  the  evils 
of  our  day  exposed. 

The  facts  and  figures  in  the  following  pages  have 
been  selected  with  the  greatest  possible  care.  None 
of  them  have  been  taken  on  mere  rumor.  What  has 
been  given  in  reference  to  prisons  and  crime  has  come 
from  personal  examination  of  documents.  The  figures 
relating  to  church  attendance,  and  to  the  young  man  in 
the  saloon  and  bagnio,  have  been  furnished  by  Secretaries 
of  the  Young  Men*s  Christian  Association,  by  pastors 
and  physicians,  all  of  whom  are  men  of  standino^  and 
reputation  in  the  communities  where  they  live. 

There  has  been  no  selection  of  material  to  make  a 
bad  case.  The  author  has  been  controlled  by  a  desire  to 
under-estimate  rather  than  to  over-estimate.  "  Dying  at 
the  Top  **  is  an  honest  attempt  to  tell  the  simple  truth. 


DYING  AT  THE  TOP. 


CHAPTER  I. 


AT   THE   TOP. 

In  the  progress  of  human  affairs  no  character  has 
risen  higher  in  importance  and  influence  than  the  young 
man.  It  might  almost  be  said  that  he  has  made  history 
what  it  is.  What  great  crisis  in  the  story  of  the  nations 
has  there  been  when  he  did  not  come  to  the  front  as 
soldier,  statesman,  or  reformer?  When  God  would 
change  the  kingdom  of  the  Hebrews  from  a  theocracy 
to  a  monarchy,  it  was  Saul,  "a  choice  young  man,"  who 
was  selected  for  the  throne. 

When  David  first  appeared  at  the  Hebrew  court  he 
was  addressed  by  the  king,  "Whose  son  art  thou,  thou 
young  man  ?"  It  was  as  a  young  man  that  he  won  the 
hearts  of  all  Israel  by  his  valor  in  the  field,  and  at  the 
age  of  thirty-one  he  ascended  the  throne.  At  eighteen, 
Solomon  was  declared  king  of  Israel,  and  began  that 
career  that  won  him  world-wide  fame.  He  was  not 
more  than  twenty-three  when  the  Queen  of  Sheba  visited 
his  court  and  confessed, "  It  was  a  true  report  that  I 
heard  in  mine  own  land  of  thy  acts  and  of  thy  wisdom. 
Howbeit  I  believed  not  the  words  until  I  came  and  mine 
eyes  had  seen  it;  and  behold  the  half  was  not  told  me." 

In  the  history  of  the  divided  kingdom  after  the  death 
of  Solomon,  it  is  singular  that  in  not  a  single  instance  is 
the  age  of  a  king  of  Israel  given  at  the  time  of  his  com- 


16  Dying  at  the  Top, 

ing  to  the  throne,  whilst  in  the  kingdom  of  J udah  the 
ages  of  all  her  nineteen  kings  but  two  are  given.  Of  the 
seventeen  whose  ages  are  mentioned,  all  are  young  men 
but  one,  Rehoboam,  who  ascended  the  throne  at  forty- 
one.  Joash  became  king  at  seven  years  of  age;  Josiah 
at  eight;  Azariah  at  sixteen;  Jehoiakin  at  eighteen; 
Ahaz  at  twenty.  At  sixteer^osiah  began  to  seek  the 
Lord;  at  twenty  he  began  to  purge  J  udah  of  idolatry, 
and  at  twenty-six  repaired  the  temple.  Hezekiah  was 
only  twenty-five  when  he  restored  the  Temple  of  the 
Lord  and  destroyed  the  brazen  serpent  of  the  wilder- 
ness. For  four  hundred  years  J  udah  was  ruled  by  her 
young  men,  and  was  captured  and  Jerusalem  destroyed 
under  Zedekiah  at  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

Any  one  who  has  read  the  history  of  Rome  and 
Greece  with  care,  knows  the  prominent  part  their  young 
men  filled  in  their  national  affairs.  They  were  the  ath- 
letes in  their  games  and  the  gladiators  in  their  contests; 
they  occupied  positions  of  prominence  in  their  religious 
processions ;  they  made  up  the  mass  of  the  scholars  in 
their  gardens  and  academies,  and  of  the  soldiers  in  their 
armies.  It  was  their  brain  and  brawn  that  made  Athens 
and  Sparta  what  they  were  in  their  prime,  and  it  was  the 
decadence  of  their  moral  principle  that  brought  Corinth 
and  Rome  to  what  they  were  in  the  era  of  their  decline. 
Alexander  the  Great  was  regent  of  his  father's  kingdom 
at  nineteen ;  at  twenty  sat  on  the  throne  of  Macedon, 
and  while  yet  a  youth  won  his  victories  and  his  fame, 
and  at  thirty-two  died  in  a  drunken  debauch.  Mark 
Antony  was  not  thirty  when  he  distinguished  himself 
in  Egypt  and  Syria.  At  twenty-three  Julius  Caisar  had 
made  his  mark  as  an  orator  before  the  Roman  Senate, 
and  at  twenty-seven  was  chosen  military  tribune.  Nero 
was  but  fourteen  years  old  when  he  came  to  the  Roman 
throne  ;  and  was  twenty-seven  when,  first  having  set  fire 
to  the  city,  he  sat  on  top  of  a  tower,  and,  as  he  watche' 
the  flames,  "amused  himself  with  chanting  to  his  ow*. 
lyre  verses  on  the  destruction  of  Troy." 

The  greatest  event  in  human  annals  was  the  begit 


Dvino-  ai  the    7^0 p.  17 

ning  of  the  Christian  era;  yet  right  in  its  dawn  stands 
John  the  Baptist,  a  young  man  of  thirty  years,  and  rings 
in  the  new  era  with  his"  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  at  hand  !  " 

Christ  himself  was  a  young  man,  thirty  years  old  at 
His  baptism,  and  thirty-three  at  His  death.  And  the 
probability  is  that  all  His  apostles  were  young  like  Him- 
self. The  fact  that  He  foresaw  the  long  journeys  they 
would  have  to  make  and  the  severe  hardships  they 
would  be  called  on  to  endure,  would  likely  lead  Him  to 
choose  as  His  messengers  only  those  in  the  prime  of  early 
manhood.  Of  John,  His  beloved  disciple,  history  states 
that  he  died  A.  D.  100,  aged  ninety-four.  This  would 
place  his  birth  at  A.  D.  6.  As  Jesus  was  born  four 
years  before  the  year  i  of  the  Christian  era,  this  would 
make  John  ten  years  younger  than  the  Saviour,  and  so 
only  twenty  years  old  at  his  call  as  an  apostle.  His 
brother  James  was  probably  somewhat  older,  but  not 
likely  over  twenty-five. 

That  the  great  Apostle  Paul  was  a  young  man  at 
his  conversion,  is  evident  from  Acts  vii..  58,  where  in 
the  martyrdom  of  Stephen,  it  is  said,  "The  witnesses 
laid  down  their  clothes  at  a  young  man's  feet  whose 
name  was  Saul." 

At  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  Charlemagne  was 
master  of  the  whole  of  Gaul  and  of  Germany. 

Charles  V.  of  Germany  ascended  the  throne  of 
Spain  at  sixteen;  took  the  government  of  affairs  into  his 
own  hands,  and  at  once  became  the  most  powerful  ruler 
in  Europe.  At  twenty  he  was  crowned  Emperor  of 
Germany  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  at  twenty-five  fought 
the  important  battle  of  Pavia. 

Charles  XH.  of  Sweden  was  a  king  at  fifteen; 
beat  the  Russian  armies  before  Narva  at  eighteen,  and 
at  twenty-five  was  on  his  way  to  Moscow,  with  the 
repute  of  being  the  greatest  general  of  his  age. 

Louis  XIV.  of  France  became  heir  to  the  throne 
at  five  years  of  age;  at  thirteen  declared  himself  of  age 
and  assumed  the  royal  authority;  at  fifteen  put  an  end  to 


18  Dying  at  the   Top, 

the  wars  of  the  Fronde;  at  eighteen  became  his  own 
Prime  Minister,  and  by  his  twenty-first  year  made  his 
court  the  center  of  Hterature,  science  and  art. 

Napoleon  I.  was  a  Brigadier-General  at  twenty-five; 
at  twenty-seven  was  at  the  head  of  the  army  of  Italy; 
before  he  was  twenty-eight  had  beaten  four  Austrian 
armies,  and  at  thirty-three  was  proclaimed  Consul  of 
France  for  life. 

General  Lafayette  was  not  twenty  years  old  when 
the  American  Congress  accepted  his  service  in  the  war 
of  the  Revolution,  and  made  him  a  Major-General  in  the 
U.  S.  Army;  and  he  was  but  twenty-seven  when,  at  the 
mvitation  of  Washington,  he  revisited  this  country,  and 
made  his  memorable  tour  of  the  leading  cities  of  the  new 
Republic. 

John  Calvin,  whom  Bancroft  calls  "  the  guide  of 
Republics,"  was  already  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  at  Paris,  at  twenty.  At  twenty- three  his  sermons 
were  publicly  burnt  in  the  streets  of  the  capital,  and  at 
twenty-six  he  issued  his  "  Institutes,"  which  at  once 
made  him  famous  throughout  Europe. 

Martin  Luther  at  twenty-four  was  Professor  of 
Philosophy  at  Wittenberg;  at  twenty-seven  heard  the 
inward  voice,  "The  just  shall  live  by  Faith,"  while  on 
his  knees  ascending  the  Scala  Santa  opposite  the 
Church  of  St.  John  Lateran  at  Rome;  and  was  only 
thirty-four  when  he  inaugurated  the  Reformation  by 
tacking  his  ninety-five  theses  on  the  doors  of  the  Schloss- 
kirche  at  Wittenberg. 

Have  I  not  cited  enough  to  show  that  in  the  past, 
the  hand  of  the  young  man  has  been  on  the  Helm  of 
Human  Destiny?  And  who  that  knows  anything  of 
our  country  and  our  era  does  not  see  the  same  youthful 
hand  at  the  helm  to-day? 

Individuals  among  our  young  men  of  the  present 
century  may  not  rise  to  the  unusual  distinction  pos- 
sessed by  many  in  the  past,  but  the  masses  of  them 
enter  into  the  movements  of  the  day,  and  are  giving 
shape  to  human  affairs  as  they  have  never  done  in  any 


Dying  at  the   7'op,  19 

previous  age  of  the  world.  At  home,  and  in  commer- 
cial and  political  affairs,  they  are  at  the  top  of  the  tree. 
They  rise  the  highest  in  our  cares  and  solicitations. 
They  are  our  chief  pride  and  hope.  This  world  seems 
made  for  them  and  not  for  our  daughters.  Fairy  hands 
take  them  up  at  their  very  birth,  and  Fortune,  the  genial 
goddess,  showers  her  gifts  on  them  from  the  very  cradle. 
The  Goshen  spots  of  home  are  assigned  them;  in  their 
education  and  culture  everything  is  done  for  them. 
Parents  spend  years  in  personal  self-sacrifice,  that  their 
boys  may  be  grandly  fitted  for  life.  When  they  step 
out  into  the  world,  helping  hands  meet  them  every- 
where if  they  are  worthy.  Their  life  and  energy  and 
hopefulness  are  at  a  premium.  In  point  of  numbers, 
they  throng  wherever  you  turn.  Our  country  seems  to 
be  a  hive  of  young  men.  The  census  of  1880  reports 
for  our  whole  land  a  male  population  of  twenty-five  and 
a  half  millions,  and  the  one-fourth  of  that  number  are 
young  men  from  eighteen  to  thirty  years  of  age.  Young 
men  between  these  ages  form  one-sixth  of  the  entire 
population  of  our  thriving  cities,  and  those  from  twenty- 
one  to  thirty-one  almost  half  of  our  voting  population. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  there  are  one  million  five 
hundred  thousand  men  employed  in  the  railroad  business 
of  the  United  States,  a  very  large  majority  of  whom  are 
young  men. 

There  are  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  commer- 
cial travelers  making  their  tours  over  the  land,  sixty  per 
cent,  of  whom  are  young  men.  A  recent  memorial  to 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Committee,  from  members  of 
the  amusement  associations,  states  that  there  are  five 
hundred  organizations  of  circuses,  theatrical  and  minstrel 
troupes  and  the  like,  in  our  country,  and  that,  in  one 
form  or  another,  seventy-five  thousand  persons  are  in 
their  employ.  And  who  that  is  acquainted  with  these 
combinations  does  not  know  that  young  men  make  up 
their  rank  and  file.  Forepaugh's  circus  for  the  summer 
of  1887,  employed  about  five  hundred  men,  and  when 
one  of  the  officials  was  asked  how  many  of  them  were 


20  Dying  at  the   Top. 

young  men,  he  replied,  ''All  of  them,  and  we  take  none 
under  twenty-one  years  old." 

These  seven  million  young  men  of  our  present  day 
are  to  be  the  future  husbands  of  our  daughters,  and 
fathers  of  our  children.  They  are  to  bring  into  being 
twenty  million  of  our  coming  population  before  they  die. 
If,  as  Goethe  said,  "the  destiny  of  any  nation,  at  any 
given  time,  depends  on  the  opinions  of  the  young  men 
who  are  under  twenty-five  years  of  age,"  these  young 
men  are  to  shape  our  politics,  give  color  to  our  educa- 
tion and  character  to  this  mighty  Republic. 

If  all  this  be  true,  then  I  make  a  statement  of 
momentous  interest  when  I  say  that  in  our  young  men, 
American  society  is  dying  at  the  top. 


CHAPTER  II. 


DYING. 


The  national  committee  of  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association  has  sent  out  a  printed  statement,  in 
which  I  find  that  but  five  per  cent,  of  the  young  men 
throughout  the  land  are  members  of  church ;  that  only 
fifteen  out  of  every  one  hundred  attend  religious  services 
with  any  regularity,  and  that  seventy-five  out  of  one 
hundred  never  attend  church  at  all.  That  is,  putting 
the  number  of  young  men  at  about  one-eighth  of  the 
population,  of  the  seven  millions  in  the  United  States, 
over  five  millions  of  them  are  never,  or  practically  never, 
inside  a  Christian  church. 

Is  this  too  low  an  estimate?  Let  us  see.  I  have 
always  heard  it  said  of  Pittsburg,  Penn.,  that  it  is  a 
community  of  worshippers.  The  church  property  of 
that  city  and  Allegheny  is  valued  at  nearly  six  million 
dollars.      Ever  since  the  place  was  founded,  religious 


Dying-  at  the    Top.  21 

work  of  the  most  solid  kind  has  been  carried  on.  Yet 
to-day,  among  the  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven  thou- 
sand people  who  live  in  Pittsburg  and  Allegheny,  and 
among  the  fifty  thousand  of  their  young  men,  only  four 
thousand  five  hundred  are  found  in  all  the  churches, 
Protestant  and  Jewish. 

New  Albany,  Ind.,  where  I  live,  is  a  city  of  churches. 
It  has  been  in  the  hands  of  Christian  people  for  more 
than  half  a  century.  The  place  in  that  time  has  grown 
from  a  village  to  a  city  of  twenty-five  thousand  inhabit- 
ants. Everywhere  you  meet  with  churches.  The 
Methodists  have,  in  all,  seven  places  of  worship;  the 
Presbyterians  have  three;  the  Christian,  two;  the  Bap- 
tist, two;  the  Episcopalian,  one;  Lutheran,  one.  In  all 
sixteen  houses  of  worship.  They  are  all  self-supporting 
and  doing  a  grand  work  for  Christ.  At  present  there  is 
in  the  city  scarcely  a  family  of  any  prominence  that  is 
not  identified  with  some  Christian  church.  Nearly  one- 
third  of  the  adult  population  over  fifteen  years  of  age,  is 
in  the  membership  of  the  Protestant  churches.  At  the 
same  rate  of  growth,  these  Protestant  churches  should 
have  by  this  time  over  one  thousand  of  the  thirty-five 
hundred  young  men  of  New  Albany.  Instead  of  that 
number,  they  had,  a  few  months  ago,  by  actual  count, 
in  eleven  of  the  twelve  white  churches,  three  hundred  and 
twenty-five  In  all  the  Protestant  churches  there  are 
not  over  three  hundred  and  fifty  young  men  on  their 
rolls.  That  is,  of  every  three  young  men  the  Church 
should  have  had.  she  has  retained  one  and  the  world  has 
gotten  two. 

The  people  of  Springfield,  Ohio,  claim  for  their  busy 
city  a  population  of  at  least  thirty-six  thousand.  Judg- 
ing from  the  census  of  1880,  the  males  from  the  ages  of 
eighteen  to  thirty  comprise  a  little  over  one-sixth  of  the 
entire  population.  This  would  give  Springfield  about 
six  thousand  five  hundred  young  men.  By  a  count  made 
in  January  of  this  year  (1889)  there  were  in  the  mem- 
bership of  the  nine  leading  churches,  four  hundred  and 
sixty-one  young  men  of  the  abo\e  mentioned  ages.  These 


22  Dying  at  the   Top. 

nine  churches  include  almost  the  whole  membership  of 
all  the  protestant  faith  in  that  city.  Dr.  Helwig,  who 
is  now  candidate  for  governor  on  the  prohibition  ticket 
in  Ohio,  told  me  that  in  his  judgment  there  are  not  over 
five  hundred  young  men  in  all  the  protestant  churches  of 
Springfield.  This  means  that  of  every  one  hundred  younjo;- 
men  nearly  ninety-three  are  out  of  the  church.  Of  the 
five  hundred,  not  one  hundred  and  fifty  take  any  part  in 
the  work  of  the  churches  to  which  they  belong. 

The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  Watchmatt 
of  September,  1888,  contained  the  lollowing  item  :  "There 
are  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  males  in  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Rhode  Island  between  the  ages  of  fifteen 
and  forty,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not  more  than  one- 
sixth  of  the  number  are  members  of  evangelical  churches." 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  a  canvass  was  made  among  the  churches  of 
Evansville,  Ind.,  taking  the  limits  as  to  age  at  sixteen 
and  thirty-five.  The  footing  up  showed  eight  hundred 
and  sixty-five  of  the  sixty-five  hundred  young  men  as 
belonging  to  the  evangelical  churches.  "  The  estimate 
includes  a  large  number  of  probationers  of  the  Metho- 
dist and  Evangelical  Lutheran  denominations." 

I.  E.  Brown,  State  Secretary  of  the  Illinois  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  writes :  "  In  a  city  of  ten 
thousand  inhabitants,  whose  statistics  have  recently  been 
secured,  it  is  found  that  less  than  three  hundred  men  are 
in  all  the  evangelical  churches,  and  of  these  less  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  are  between  the  ages  of  sixteen 
and  forty." 

In  a  valuable  communication  to  me,  Geo.  W.  Cobb^ 
R.  R.  Secretary  at  present,  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  at  St.  Louis,  says:  "  I  find  in  my  own  work 
that  the  number  of  young  men  who  profess  to  believe 
in  Ingersoll  and  spiritualism  and  materialism,  and  are 
sceptics,  is  appalling.  It  has  been  estimated  that  there 
are  from  sixteen  thousand  to  eighteen  thousand  young 
men  in  Indianapolis,  and  that   five  to  seven  per  cent,  of 


Dying  at  the   Top.  23 

them  are  church  members,  and  that  fifteen  to  seventeen 
per  cent,  attend  church  regularly." 

Mr.  Cobb  also  furnished  the  following  :  "  In  one  city 
of  nineteen  thousand  population,  were  three  thousand 
five  hundred  young  men,  and  eighty-five  were  members 
of  Protestant  churches;  in  another  of  twenty  thousand, 
three  thousand  five  hundred  are  young  men,  and  twenty- 
nine  were  members;  in  another  of  twenty  thousand, four 
thousand  young  men,  and  thirty-eight  joined  in  one  year; 
in  another  of  seventeen  thousand,  three  thousand  young 
men,  three  hundred  and  fifty  were  church  members;  in 
another  of  thirty-eight  thousand,  six  thousand  young 
men,  and  three  hundred  attended  church;  in  another  of 
thirty-two  thousand,  five  thousand  young  men,  and  one 
hundred  and  five  received  into  twenty-one  churches  dur- 
ing the  year."  These,  says  Mr.  Cobb,  are  from  carefully 
collected  statistics,  and  are  "cold  facts." 

It  is  not  claimed  for  the  above  cities  that  they  repre- 
sent the  best  sections  of  the  country.  They  are  given  to 
show  that  taking  the  land  throughout,  it  is  not  putting 
the  per  cent,  too  low  to  say  that  only  five  young  men  in 
every  hundred  profess  Christ.  Desiring  the  names  of 
the  above  mentioned  cities,  I  wrote  Mr.  Cobb,  and  received 
in  reply: 

"Dear  Brother: — I  am  unable  to  give  you  the 
names  of  the  cities  mentioned ;  they  are  facts,  however, 
obtained  from  carefully  gleaned  statistics,  kept  by  our 
State  and  International  Committees.  In  moving  from 
Indianapolis  I  lost  books  and  papers,  and  those  referred 
to  are  among  them.  It  is  a  fact  that  some  of  our  pas- 
tors refuse  to  accept  such  statistics.  I  myself,  in  com- 
paring notes  with  two  or  three  others,  visited  and 
counted  the  number  of  young  men  visiting  the  saloons 
in  Madison,  Ind.,  one  Saturday  evening,  and  also  ascer- 
tained the  number  at  church  the  next  Sunday,  and  found 
that  our  calculations  were  true.  More  young  men  were 
found  in  two  or  three  saloons  than  in  all  the  churches 
combined.     I    found    tlie    same    condition    of  things  in 


24  Dying  at  the   Top. 

Atlanta,  Ga.,  when  stopping  there,  and  if  that  Virginia 
pastor  could  stop  in  St.  Louis  a  short  time,  he  would  be 
convinced  that  our  figures  do  not  lie.  It  is  appalling, 
the  number  of  young  men  and  boys  arrested  for  crime  in 
this  city.  A.  boy  not  more  than  nine  years  old  set  fire 
to  my  barn  last  week,  and  it  was  nearly  burnt  down. 
Yours  sincerely,  Geo.  W.  COBB." 

Rev.  J.  E.  Gilbert,  D.D.,  in  an  address  on  "Our 
Young  Men,"  delivered  at  the  Indiana  State  Sunday 
School  Convention,  June  22,  1887,  asks  with  reference 
to  the  young  men  of  Indiana: 

"  I.  Are  they,  in  any  considerable  number,  mem- 
bers of  the  church,  of  any  church?  The  answer  must 
be  in  the  negative.  In  this  state  there  are  in  round 
numbers  four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  communicants 
in  all  ecclesiastical  bodies.  By  a  series  of  observations, 
carefully  conducted,  it  has  been  estimated  that  not  more 
than  six  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  are  males 
between  fifteen  and  twenty-five  years.  That  gives  in 
the  entire  state  twenty-seven  thousand  inside,  and  two 
hundred  and  twenty-three  thousand  outside.  That  is, 
ninety  per  cent,  of  all  the  class  under  consideration  have 
not  so  much  as  entered  their  names  upon  the  roll  of  any 
church  whatever.  Ten  per  cent,  only  have  openly  signi- 
fied their  purpose  to  be  religious.  These  facts  are  the 
more  startling  when  it  is  remembered  that  all  are  of  an 
age  to  understand  the  nature  and  claims  of  religion,  and 
that  they  are  more  susceptible  to  its  influences  now  than 
they  ever  will  be  at  any  subsequent  period  of  their 
lives.  This  test  will  enable  us  to  judge  to  what  extent 
religion  will  be  a  controlling  element  in  coming  m.anhood, 
and  also  how  much  of  that  manhood  will  be  saved  and 
enHsted  in  the  cause  of  Christ.  Here  is  the  most  exact 
measurement  of  the  church  for  the  next  quarter  of  a 
century. 

"  2.  Are  the  young  men  attending  our  Sabbath- 
schools?  According  to  the  carefully  prepared  report  of  the 
Secretary  of  our  State  Sunday  School  Union,  there  were 


Dying  at  the   Top,  25 

last  year  three  hundred  and  seventy  thousand,  in  round 
numbers,  enrolled  in  the  various  Sunday  schools  of  the 
state.  As  his  figures  were,  for  the  most  part,  obtained 
from  the  published  records  of  the  various  denominational 
bodies,  they  may  be  accepted  as  nearly  correct;  if,  in 
any  degree,  they  are  not  accurate,  they  exceed  rather 
than  fall  below  the  actual  numbers. 

"  For  several  years  each  Methodist  pastor  in  the 
United  States  was  required  to  report  at  Conference  the 
number  of  pupils  in  his  school  fifteen  years  old  and 
upward;  and  it  was  found,  taking  the  years  together, 
that  these  were  about  one-fifth  of  the  entire  enrollment. 
Reckoning  on  that  basis,  there  are  in  the  Sunday 
schools  of  our  state  probably  seventy-five  thousand 
persons  over  fifteen  years.  Making  no  allowance  for  the 
large  number  over  twenty- five  years,  and  assuming  that 
the  young  gentlemen  in  Sunday  school  are  as  numerous 
as  the  young  ladies,  an  assumption  not  warranted  by 
facts,  we  have  as  a  large  estimate  for  the  young  men  and 
older  youth,  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five,  attending  Sunday 
school  in  Indiana,  say  thirty-eight  thousand.  That 
leaves  two  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  young  men 
outside  of  the  Sunday-school.  How  many  of  these  find 
their  way,  even  irregularly,  to  the  services  of  the  sanctuary 
on  the  Lord's  day,  no  one  can  tell.  But  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  not  more  than  forty  thousand  hear  preaching 
without  attending  Sunday  school.  That  would  leave 
still  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  entirely, 
or  nearly,  beyond  the  influence  of  the  church.  In 
other  words,  the  appointed  agencies  of  religion  are 
reaching  probably  not  more  than  one-third,  certainly 
not  one-half,  of  the  young  men  of  our  state. 

"  3.  Another  fact  is  closely  related  to  the  foregoing. 
There  are  in  the  state  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
thousand  boys  between  the  ages  of  five  and  ten  years. 
In  the  state  of  Maryland,  by  a  thoroui^^h  system  of  can- 
vassing, it  is  found  that  eighty-five  per  cent,  of  boys  of 
that  age  are  in  Sunday-school.  Assuming  that  the 
same  proportion  holds  in  this  state,  it  follows  that  of  the 


26  Dying  at  the   Top. 

one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  now  wholly  beyond 
the  influence  of  the  church  and  Sunday-school,  all  but 
about  thirty-five  thousand  were  once  in  our  classes, 
receiving  more  or  less  religious  instruction.  In  other 
words,  the  church  at  one  time  or  another  has  had  in  its 
hands  two  hundred  and  twelve  thousand  out  of  the 
quarter  million  of  young  men;  it  has  led  twenty-seven 
thousand  into  nominal  discipleship;  it.  has  retained  a 
greater  or  less  hold  upon  fifty  thousand  more,  while  one 
hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand,  or  sixty-three  percent, 
of  all  committed  to  its  care,  have  not  only  failed  to 
accept  the  gospel,  but  have  even  refused  longer  to  attend 
the  place  where  it  is  preached  and  taught." 

All  of  these  statistics  are  gathered  from  our  older 
states,  and  from  sections  where  young  men  have  not 
only  had  the  opportunity  of  church  worship,  but  where 
the  most  of  them  have,  at  least  in  early  life,  been  brought 
in  contact  with  religious  services.  There  are  places  in 
our  land  where  church  privileges  are  exceedingly  limited, 
and  where  the  proportion  of  young  men  who  lead  a 
Christian  life  must  dwindle  to  almost  nothing.  Mr. 
Burford,  Assistant  State  Secretary  of  the  Wisconsin 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  says  of  the  Gogebic 
iron  range,  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  (1887), 
"there  are  not  less  than  ten  thousand  young  men  scat- 
tered along  the  trend  of  the  ore  deposit  and  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  mines.  The  above  number  is  likely  to  be 
doubled  during  the  summer."  Whilst  the  Christian  church 
has  {^\^,  if  any,  places  of  worship  for  these  young  men, 
yet  "the  devil  has  two  hundred  sets  of  rooms  open  to 
damn  the  fellows,  with  a  staft"  of  about  one  thousand 
paid  agents  and  many  volunteers,  and  money  in  abun- 
dance." 

Says  Rev.  W.  F.  Crafts :  "  I  have  discovered  in 
this  state  (New  York)  a  city  of  fifty  thousand  inhabit- 
ants— the  majority  of  them  being  English-speakin^^ — 
v/here  there  has  not  been  an  English-speaking  Protes- 
tant church  for  twelve  5/ears,  the  only  church  having 
German  service.      I  have  discovered  also  fifty  cities  of 


Dying  at  the   Top.  27 

ten  thousand  each,  in  this  state,  which  have  but  two 
Protestant  churches  each,  many  of  these  being  very 
small  and  feebly  manned  for  lack  of  funds."  These  cities 
that  Mr.  Crafts  has  discovered,  are  down-town  wards 
in  New  York  City,  in  all  of  which  there  is  said  to  be 
but  one  church  for  every  two  thousand  and  eighty-one 
inhabitants. 

At  the  first  Convention  of  Christian  Workers  held 
in  Chicago,  June,  1886,  Rev.  J.  W.  Weddell  gave  statis- 
tics showing  the  population  of  each  of  the  wards  in  Chi- 
cago, and  the  number  of  churches  in  each  ward.  One 
ward  of  thirty  thousand  had  but  one  church;  another  of 
forty-one  thousand  had  but  three  churches;  another  of 
thirty  thousand  had  but  five  churches.  In  Dr.  Strong's 
book,  "  Our  Country,"  it  is  stated  that  one  of  the  districts 
of  Chicago  has  a  population  of  fifty  thousand,  with 
twenty  thousand  children  under  twenty  years  of  age, 
and  that  in  this  district  there  is  Sabbath-school  accom- 
modation for  only  two  thousand,  whilst  two  hundred 
and  sixty-one  saloons  and  dago  shops  are  open  night 
and  day  for  their  ruin. 

Dr.  Strong  also  quotes  Dr.  Dorchester  as  saying 
that  though  the  evangelical  church  membership  in  the 
country  at  large  numbered  in  1880  one  in  every  five  of 
the  population  of  the  United  States,  yet  in  Colorado  it 
numbered  but  one  in  twenty;  in  Montana,  one  in  thirty- 
six;  in  Nevada,  one  in  forty-six;  in  Wyoming,  one  in 
eighty-one;  in  Utah,  one  in  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
four;  in  New  Mexico,  one  in  six  hundred  and  fifty- seven, 
and  in  Arizona,  one  in  six  hundred  and  eighty-five. 

From  such  statistics  as  the  above,  which  might  be 
multiplied  indefinitely,  it  is  plain  that  the  estimate  which 
allows  five  young  men  out  of  every  hundred  for  member- 
ship in  the  church  is  not  too  low.  Indeed,  it  is  exceed- 
ingly doubtful  whether  the  proportion  is  that  large. 

To  the  above  discouraging  statements  must  be 
added  this  other,  that  of  the  young  men  who  are  in  the 
communion  of  the  church,  not  more  than   one-half  of 


28  Dying  at  the   Tof, 

them  can  be  relied  on  for  anything  Hke  active  service  in 
evangelical  work.  The  churches  over  the  country  that 
have  their  young  men  neither  in  the  prayer-meeting  nor 
Sabbath  school  are  legion.  Their  consecration  to  the 
Sabbath  base-ball  games  is  greater  than  to  the  com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  Supper. 

The  pastors  of  a  certain  city  were  asked  the  ques- 
tions, How  many  young  men  have  you  in  your  member- 
ship between  eighteen  and  thirty  years  of  age  ?  and  how 
many  of  these  are  active  workers  in  the  church  ?  The 
replies  of  eleven  of  them  footed  up  three  hundred  and 
twenty-five  in  membership,  and  less  than  one-half  of 
them  in  any  active  work.  The  above  city  has  a  popula- 
tion of  more  than  twenty  thousand;  yet  Forepaughs 
circus,  that  exhibited  in  it  in  August  of  1887,  had  three 
times  as  many  young  men  consecrated  to  its  amusements 
as  have  all  the  churches  of  that  city  in  the  ranks  of  their 
active  workers.  Said  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in  a  city  of  two 
hundred  thousand  population:  "We  have  four  hundred 
and  fifty-two  active  and  associate  members  in  our  Asso- 
ciation, yet  we  cannot  muster  ten  consecrated  workers 
out  of  them  all." 

Here,  then,  we  have  seventy-five  out  of  eveiy  hun- 
dred young  men  in  this  country  who  do  not  attend 
church;  ninety-five  out  of  every  hundred  do  not  belong 
to  church,  and  at  least  ninety-seven  out  of  every  hundred 
who  are  carrying  no  cross  and  bearing  no  burden  for  the 
redeeming  of  the  world  to  Christ  and  His  church. 

In  short,  the  young  man  of  our  day  is  substantially 
figured  out  as  a  factor  in  Christian  evangelization,  and 
were  the  whole  population  to  come  to  his  standard,  the 
church  would  almost  be  figured  out  as  a  factor  in  the 
moulding  influences  of  this  great  land.  From  the  Chris- 
tian standpoint,  this  state  of  things  is  simply  astounding, 
and  will  stagger  the  most  hopeful  for  a  speedy  evangeli- 
zation of  our  country.  With  only  three  of  every  hundred 
of  our  own  young  men  wearing  the  yoke  for  Christ,  what 


Dying  at  the   Vop.  29^ 

becomes  of  the  prophecy  that  in  one  hundred  years  more 
the  whole  earth  will  have  turned  to  the  Cross  ? 

It  may  be  remarked  that  in  most  of  the  above  esti- 
mates the  Catholic  church  has  not  been  mentioned,  and 
the  question  be  asked,  Do  you  intend  to  exclude  her 
young  men  from  the  ranks  of  the  Christian  army?  By 
no  means.  When  a  young  man  is  found  consecrated  to 
his  Catholic  worship,  he  is  counted  among  Christians 
just  as  are  those  who  are  consecrated  to  Protestant  ser- 
vice. 

In  the  matter  of  statistics,  estimates  cannot  be 
made  among  Catholics  as  among  Protestants.  The  boys 
are  all  confirmed  at  an  early  age  and  are  regarded  as 
church  members  all  through  life,  no  matter  what  may  be 
their  characters,  and  the  Catholic  priests  are  reticent  on 
the  subject,  so  that  nothing  can  be  determined  through 
them.  But  the  same  agencies  that  are  at  work  to 
estrange  Protestant  young  men  from  their  church,  are  at 
work  among  those  of  Catholic  homes.  Owing  to  the 
fact  that  the  adherents  of  Catholicism  are  largely  for- 
eigners, the  tone  of  spirituality  among  its  young  men  is 
lower  than  with  the  Protestants;  hence  the  fact  of  such 
a  large  percentage  of  the  convicts  in  our  jails  and  peni- 
tentiaries being  of  Catholic  persuasion.  To  an  observer 
it  is  plain  that  the  Catholic  church  has  lost  tens  of 
thousands  of  her  youth  from  her  communion.  Lapsed 
Catholics  are  found  everywhere,  especially  among  the 
men.  They  do  not  go  over  to  Protestantism,  but  land 
in  the  world,  where  they  retain  the  bias  of  their  early 
education  without  its  devoutness.  It  is  no  uncommon 
thing  to  meet  young  men  of  Catholic  families  who  never 
attend  any  church,  who  utter  no  prayer  and  have  never 
read  the  Scriptures.  It  is  because  Rome  feels  this  hegira 
from  her  communion  through  the  liberalizing  influences 
of  our  country  that  the  present  system  of  separate 
Catholic  schools  is  so  rigidly  enforced.  It  was  an  alarm 
measure  growing  out  of  the  conviction  that  the  whole 
fabric  was  in  peril. 

I  asked  a  member  of  the  Catholic  church  :  Do  your 


30  Dying  at  the   Top, 

young  men  attend  your  religious  services  ?  The  reply 
was, "  No,  they  do  not.  In  a  few  of  our  very  pious  homes 
the  boys  are  taken  to  church,  and  are  often  held  there 
till  they  are  twenty-one  years  of  age  ;  but  after  that  they 
seldom  come.  Our  priests  are  continually  urging  their 
attendance  just  as  you  pastors  do  in  the  Protestant 
churches." 

As  an  evidence  of  the  disintegrating  influences  at 
work  among  Catholic  boys  and  young  men,  I  quote  the 
following  from  the  Catholic  Home: 

"There  is  not  a  parish  in  Chicago  where  the  Sunday 
saloon  has  not  been  the  ruin  of  hundreds  of  the  most 
promising  and  the  brightest  boys  that  made  their  first 
communion  in  the  parish  church.  There  is  not  a  parish 
priest  in  this  city  but  can  furnish  a  long  catalogue  of 
young  men  and  married  men  whose  loss  of  character,  of 
self-respect,  of  faith  and  virtue,  whose  downfall  and  prob- 
able damnation,  can  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  open  Sun- 
day saloon.  Is  there  any  Catholic  father  or  mother  who 
mourns  the  perversion  of  a  son,  any  Catholic  wife  whose 
husband  abandons  his  hiome  for  the  Sunday  saloon,  but 
would  rejoice  to  see  these  places  of  temptation  closed  ? 
Who  are  they  that  clamor  for  the  open  Sunday  saloon  ? 
Hard  drinkers,  inebriates,  debauchees,  and  those  who 
minister  to  their  vices,  and  grow  rich  on  the  misery  of 
wrecked  lives." 

What  is  true  of  the  young  men  of  Protestant  and 
Catholic  homes  is  even  more  true  among  the  Hebrews. 
Time-honored  Jadaism  is  fast  losing  its  hold  on  young 
men,  and  they  are  going  almost  en  masse  into  infidelity. 
Thus  writes  Mrs.  Freshman,  wife  of  the  editor  of  The 
Hebrew  Christian:  "The  Jewish  young  men  pay  very 
little  attention  to  the  religion  of  their  fathers,  though  on 
the  day  of  atonement,  the  most  solemn  day  of  all  the 
year  to  them,  they  make  it  a  point  to  be  present  in  the 
synagogue,  but  aside  from  this  they  are  seldom  found  at 
their  services.  They  are  drifting  towards  infidelity,  and 
if  the  Christian  church  were  only  aHve  to  her  duty,  many 
hundreds  might  be  gathered  into  the  fold  of  Christ." 


Dyitig  at  the   Top.  31 

There  are  those  who  think  that  the  Jews  are  in 
some  marvellous  way  preserved  from  the  vicious  influ- 
ences that  degrade  and  destroy  in  other  circles.  I  have 
heard  it  stated  from  my  childhood  that  there  are  no  Jews 
in  jail,  and  it  is  only  a  i^w  weeks  ago  that,  in  this  city,  a 
celebrated  Kentucky  evangelist  challenged  an  audience, 
"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  Jew  being  in  prison?  No,  sir, 
the  Hebrews  look  better  after  their  own  than  that." 
Had  this  evangelist  studied  the  prison  reports  he  would 
have  found  in  the 

Missouri  Penitentiary,  1888 _.     4  Jews. 

Illinois  Penitentiary,  1884 19 

Ohio  Penitentiary,  1888 _ 4 

Illinois  Penitentiary,  1888 12 

Tennessee  Penitentiary,  1S88 5 

Elmira  Reformatory,  1887 _ .  128 

"  1888— 156 

Cleveland  Reformatory,  1888 8 

Detroit  House  of  Correction,  1888 3 

These  facts  are  given  only  to  show  that  no  homes 
and  no  creeds  are  exempt  from  the  blighting  influences 
of  the  day. 

The  writer  has  no  disposition  to  judge  harshly  those 
who  are  not  in  the  membership  of  the  church.  He  is 
well  aware  that  many  in  it  are  not  Christians — so  is  he 
certain  that  many  out  of  it  are  Christ's  own;  yet  these 
two  things  remain  true,  first,  that  it  is  poor  personal  re- 
ligion that  under  favorable  circumstances  does  not  mani- 
fest itself  in  a  public  profession  of  faith  in  Jesus  Christ ; 
second,  that  there  is  no  Christian  life  where  one  is  prayer- 
less,  and  has  respect  for  no  kind  of  religious  forms.  If 
such  passages  as  these  furnish  the  basis  of  our  future 
judgment  — "  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved,"  and  "Whosoever  doth  not  bear  his  cross 
and  come  after  Me,  cannot  be  My  disciple," —  one  of  the 
terrible  scenes  of  the  great  reckoning  will  be  the  arraign- 
ing of  our  seven  million  young  men,  and  the  terrible 
announcement  to  almost  the  whole  mass  of  them, "  I  never 
knew  you  ! "  "I  never  knew  you  !" 


32  Dying  at  the  Top, 


CHAPTER  III. 


DEAD. 


If  our  young  men  did  no  more  than  remain  away 
from  our  churches,  and  would  live  under  the  control  of 
moral  principles,  the  case  against  them  would  not  be  so 
bad.  But  the  truth  is  that  vast  numbers  of  them  are 
being  lost  to  even  morality.  They  are  dying  at  the  top. 
All  the  elements  that  enter  into  ordinary  manhood  are 
being  blighted  within  them.  Their  story  is  one  of  lost 
purity  and  uprightness.  Their  sensitiveness  to  truth, 
and  home,  and  self  has  been  blighted,  and  they  are 
"  dead  in  trespasses  and  in  sin."  No  one  who  has  not 
given  attention  to  it,  dreams  of  the  prominence  of  the 
young  man  m  the  criminalities  and  corruptions  of  the 
day. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  there  are  one  hundred 
thousand  tramps  and  vagrants  in  the  United  States  who 
sustain  themselves  by  begging  from  door  to  door. 
The  vast  majority  of  these  are  young  men.  A 
sheriff,  when  asked  what  proportion  of  the  tramps  he 
fed  during  the  winter  months  are  young  men,  replied, 
"  All  of  them."  A  conductor  spoke  of  the  bands  of 
vagrants  he  would  often  see  from  his  train  as  he  would  be 
passing  from  city  to  city,  as  "  camps  of  young  men." 
After  the  murder  of  Jennie  Bowman  in  Louisville,  the 
first  arrests  were  of  tramps.  Six  were  taken  up 
at  one  time,  the  oldest  of  whom  was  twenty-seven,  and 
the  youngest  nineteen. 

This  last  winter  an  organized  band  of  tramps  made 
their  headquarters  at  the  Coke  Ovens,  in  Louisville. 
They  soon  became  such  a  nuisance  that  the  police 
determined  to  rid  the  city  of  their  presence.     The  plans 


Dying  at  the    Top.  33 

were  laid,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night  the  rendezvous 
was  surrounded,  and  not  a  single  man  escaped. 

"Twenty-one  tramps  filled  the  patrol  wagons.  No 
tougher  looking  lot  ever  passed  through  the  door  of 
Central  Station  than  tliis  collection  of  professional 
loafers.  In  spite  of  their  filthy  faces  and  tattered 
clothes  they  seemed  no  objects  of  sympathy.  Ranging 
in  years  from  fifteen  to  thirty,  they  were  one  and  all 
stout,  able-bodied  fellows,  well  able  to  support  them- 
selves if  they  were  so  inclined." 

Our  dead-beats,  and  swindlers,  and  shovers  of 
counterfeit  money;  our  gamblers,  and  rapists,  and 
burglars,  are  mostly  young  men. 

In  August,  1887,  at  Salt  Lake  City,  Fred  Hopt  was 
shot  to  death  for  murder,  the  laws  of  Utah  Territory 
permitting  the  condemned  a  choice  between  hanging 
and  shooting.  "  He  sat  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth, 
a  rosette  pinned  over  his  heart  as  a  target,  and  posing  as 
if  for  a  photograph  while  the  firing  squad  of  five  aimed 
and  fired."     He  was  a  young  man. 

L.  I.  Wilson,  the  letter  thief  of  Kansas  City,  who 
punctured  letters  with  a  bodkin,  and  by  a  microscope  ex- 
amined the  contents,  was  twenty-three  years  old. 

Daniel  Miller  married  a  widow  near  Newport,  Tenn. 
She  had  four  children,  a  home,  and  two  thousand  dollars 
in  bank.  He  persuaded  his  wife  to  sell  out  her  home 
and  go  West  with  him.  The  homestead  was  disposed 
of,  and  with  the  proceeds,  the  two  thousand  dollars 
which  had  been  in  the  bank,  and  four  horses  and  a  wagon, 
the  young  man,  with  his  older  but  still  blooming  bride 
and  her  four  children,  started  toward  Chattanooga. 
When  thirty  miles  from  Newport,  Miller  stopped  his 
wagon  and  picking  up  his  wife  and  four  children,  threw 
them  into  the  road,  exclaiming: 

"  Now  go  back  home,  all  of  you,  and  be  sure  you 
get  there quick." 

Miller  drove  away  rapidly,  leaving  his  wife  and  step- 
children to  get  back  home  as  best  they  could.  Miller 
was  twenty-two  years  old. 


34  Dying  at  the   Top.  , 

In  August,  near  Macon,  Ga.,  Thomas  Wolfolk  mur- 
dered his  father,  mother,  their  six  children  and  a  lady 
visitor  in  their  home.  The  monster  murdered  them  all 
by  cutting  their  throats  from  ear  to  ear.  Even  the 
sucking  babe  lying  sleeping  in  its  cradle  was  not  spared. 
Wolfolk  is  only  twenty-seven  years  old. 

In  the  same  month,  in  Louisville  Ky.,  an  unpro- 
tected German  girl  had  lost  her  bearings  and  in  the  dusk 
of  the  evening  was  hunting  her  way  home  when  she  was 
seized  by  a  number  of  men,  who  were  in  the  act  of  drag- 
ging her  into  a  dark  alley,  when  her  cries  attracted  a 
policeman,  who  rescued  her.  The  policeman  described 
the  ruffians  as  "  six  well-dressed  young  men,"  none  of 
whom  were  "over  twenty-one  years  of  age." 

The  Turner  gang  of  desperadoes  living  on  Yellow 
Creek,  Ky.,  was  composed  often  men — allof  whom,  with 
the  exception  of  Jack  Turner  himself,  were  young  men 
ranging  in  years  from  seventeen  to  twenty-five. 

It  was  young  men  who  composed  the  majority  of 
the  band  of  roughs  who  kept  Rowan  county,  Ky.,  for  so 
long  the  scene  of  outlawry  and  bloodshed.  A  writer 
says :  "  Craig  ToUiver  was  perhaps  thirty-five  years  of 
age  and  the  others  younger,  down  to  one  of  fourteen, 
who  fought  like  a  tiger." 

John  Thomas  Ross,  who  was  hung  in  Baltimore  in 
September,  1887,  murdered  Mrs.  Emily  Brown  to  get 
fifteen  dollars  for  her  body  at  a  medical  institution.  Af- 
ter breaking  her  skull  with  a  hammer,  he  coolly  tumbled 
her  body  on  a  wheelbarrow,  trundled  it  throu^'h  the 
streets  to  the  college,  and  got  his  pay.  He  was  twenty- 
six  years  old. 

Albert  Howell,  the  Boston  letter  carrier  and  thief, 
was  a  church  member.  While  carrying  on  his  criminal 
proceedings  he  would  keep  his  Bible  beside  him  in  the 
office,  and  at  every  leisure  moment  could  be  seen  intent- 
ly reading  it.  His  fellows  would  laugh  at  him  for  his 
piety,  but  he  bore  their  scorn  without  a  murmur.  He 
was  thirty  years  old. 


Dying   at  the   'Top.  35 

One  of  the  most  fierce  and  bloody  encounters  that 
€ver  occurred  between  pugilists  in  this  country,  took 
place  at  Rocky  Point,  near  Pawtucket,  July  20,  1887. 
For  over  four  hours,  and  in  sixty-one  rounds,  Ike  Weir 
and  Johnny  Havelin  pounded  each  other  amid  the  ap- 
plause of  the  by-standers.  Weir  was  twenty-nine  years 
of  age  and  Havelin  but  twenty.  John  L.  Sullivan,  who 
has  done  so  much  in  this  country  to  revive  the  barbarism 
of  the  old  Roman  pugilism  and  to  brutalize  the  young 
men  of  the  day,  is  not  yet  thirty  years  old. 

The  above  instances  are  only  a  few  of  the  ten  thou- 
sand that  are  occurring  every  year.  It  is  not  the  excep- 
tion, it  is  the  rule,  that  young  men  are  the  criminals  of 
the  day.  From  the  single  daily  newspaper  that  comes 
into  my  home,  the  Louisville  Courier  Journal^  I  took 
down  those  cases  of  crime  chronicled  in  seven  weeks,  be- 
ginning with  May  i,  1887.  Of  the  one  hundred  and 
eighty-two  criminals,  where  the  age  was  in  one  form  or 
other  mentioned,  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  were  young 
men.  Of  the  fifty-three  murders  committed,  all  but 
eight  of  them  were  by  young  men.  And  nearly  every 
one  of  the  crimes  committed  by  these  one  hundred  and 
sixty-five  young  men  was  against  the  person,  and  in  a 
form  showing  the  basest  instincts  and  lowest  brutality. 

If  any  are  in  doubt  as  to  the  prominence  of  the 
young  men  in  the  crimes  of  the  day,  let  them  go  with 
me  to  our  jails  and  penitentiaries. 

Look  into  those  faces,  as  regiment  after*  regiment, 
brigade  after  brigade,  division  after  division,  passes  by 
you  in  striped  garb  and  with  lock-step,  and  it  is  young 
men  who  return  your  gaze.  Visit  the  camps  of  the 
Southern  prisons,  where  convicts,  as  in  Georgia,  are  sub- 
jected to  the  most  brutal  treatment,  and  where  blood- 
hounds, as  in  Texas,  are  kept  ready  to  pounce  on  the 
runaway,  and  whom  do  you  see  serving  in  a  bondage 
tenfold  worse  than  the  most  bitter  servitude  that  ever 
fell  to  the  lot  of  an  old-time  slave — but  an  army  of  young 
men  ? 


36  Dying  at  the   Top, 

Outside  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  route  to 
Ocean  Grove,  the  traveler  sees  to-day  huge  walls  rising 
out  of  the  ground.  What  are  they  for,  he  asks  instinc- 
tively? They  are  too  high  for  the  foundations  of  great 
shops.  They  have  no  windows,  and  so  cannot  be  de- 
signed for  residences.  They  remind  one  of  the  great 
Chinese  wall  built  to  protect  China  against  the  inroads 
of  the  Tartars;  and  of  the  Cyclopean  bulwarks  within 
which  the  Babylonians  took  refuge  from  the  attacks  of 
the  Persians.  But  these  massive  stone  walls  of  Penn- 
sylvania are  rising  not  to  keep  foes  out  but  to  shut  them 
in.  They  are  for  a  new  prison  for  Pennsylvania's  in- 
creasing numbers  of  criminals,  seventy  per  cent,  of  whom 
are  young  men  and  boys.  Our  own  sons  are  the  Tar- 
tars of  to-day,  and  the  walls  that,  throughout  the  coun- 
try, incarcerate  them,  would,  if  placed  end  to  end  in  a 
continuous  line,  rival  in  length  China's  fifteen-hundred- 
mile  wonder. 

In  the  following  prison  statistics,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  the  expression  "  young  men  "  applies  to  con- 
victs thirty  years  old  and  under: 

WHOLE  NO.  YOUNO   MEN. 

Texas    Penitentiaries    at    Rusk    and 

Huntsville,  according  to  Report  of 

1886-_ 2,859  2,097 

Joliet,  Illinois,  (1886)...  1,494  971 

South  Carolina  Prison  received  in  two 

years, '85  and '86— 547  391 

San  Quentin  and  Folsom,  Cal,  (1886)  1,891  886 

Kentucky  Prison  received  in  1884  and 

1885 1- - —  .         1,153  869 

Ohio  Prison  received  in  1886 __  812  503 

Pennsylvania,    Eastern,    received    In 

1886—- — „-  572  405 

Pennsylvania,    Western,  received   in 

1886 265  179 

Sing  Sing,  N.  Y.,  (1886) 1,582  1,111 

Auburn,  N.  Y.,  (1886) 1,084  639 

Indiana,  South,  (1886) 525  858 

Rhode  Island  (1885) 1,244  850 

Connecticut,  (1885) 276  153 

West  Virginia  received   in  1883  and 

1884 _ _ 205  162 

Michigan    Penitentiary     received    in 

forty-three  years,  up  to  1882 _  7,281  4,f 


Dying  at  the   Top. 


37 


To  this  list,  published   in    the  first  issues   of  this 
work,  the  following  may  be  added  : 

WHOLE   NO.  YOUNG    MEN. 

Indiana  Prison,  South,  (1888) 539  372 

Ohio  Prison  enrolled  for  1888     794  532 

West  Viry;inia  committed  in  1887 97  66 

Nevada  received  in  1888 27  16 

In  Nevada  Prison,  Dec.  31.  1888 99  57 

Indiana    Prison,    North,  October  31, 

1888-__- - 702  344 

Georgia  Prison,  (1888). 1,537  1,421 

Wisconsin,  (1888) 438  224 

Massachusetts  Reformatory: 

1884-5 663  469 

1885-6. 615  435 

1886-7— 662  441 

1887-8 _  607  428 

Vermont,  (1887-8)  94  49 

Connecticut,  (1888) 301  173 

Reformatory   at    Ionia,  Michigan,  re- 
ceived from  1886  to  1888  1,378  945 

Missouri  received  during  1887-8 1,523  1,105 

Rhode  Island  received  since  1838 1,397  953 

New  Jersey  Prison,  (1888) 881  494 

Tennessee,  (1889) 1,363  esti'd  f=  1,190 

Virginia  (1888) .-. 372  239 

Illinois   (Joliet)    received    from  Oct., 

1887,  to  Oct.,  1888 650  436 

From  these  figures  we  learn  that,  in  round  numbers, 
seventy  per  cent,  of  the  convicts  in  our  penitentiaries  are 
young  men.  In  the  common  jails  throughout  the  country 
the  per  cent,  is  not  quite  so  large,  owing  to  two  facts, 
that  there  is  a  larger  per  cent,  of  women  among  the 
criminals,  and  that  there  are  often  mere  children,  wlio,  if 
they  are  sent  up  at  all,  are  sent  to  houses  of  refuge,  in 
the  states  where  these  refuges  are  provided.  Still,  even 
with  both  these  classes  counted  in,  the  per  cent,  of  young 
men  is  very  large. 

Frederick  Howard  Wines,  in  his  "  American  Prisons," 
gives  a  table  of  the  prison  census  of  i88o,  with  the  con- 
victs numbered  according  to  their  ages.  The  whole 
number  including  penitentiaries,  city  and  county  jails, 
military  prisons,  and  hospitals  for  insane  convicts,  is 
given  as  fifty-eight  thousand  six  hundred  and  nine,  thir- 


38  Dying  at  the   Top, 

ty-four  thousand  three  hundred  and  eighty-five  of  whom 
are  young  men  from  eighteen  to  thirty  years  of  age. 

Some  people  do  not  seem  to  be  at  all  startled  at 
these  statistics,  about  which  there  is  no  mistake  nor  fal- 
sification. They  are  met  with,  "  Oh,  young  men  are 
naturally  bad  ! "  and  "  They  are  no  worse  than  their 
fathers!"  But  they  are  our  sons  none  the  less;  they 
have  immortal  souls  that  are  being  lost;  their  criminali- 
ties are  costing  the  government  immense  sums.  Society 
has  a  responsibility  with  reference  to  these  young  men. 
The  mere  fact  that  a  boy  is  naturally  bad,  and  that  his 
father  was  worse  than  he  is,  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
let  him  go  to  ruin  without  a  desperate  effort  to  save 
him.  Is  there  nothing  to  stir  men's  souls  in  the  fact  that 
every  day  of  this  year  1889,  there  has  been  heard,  in  the 
penal  institutions  of  what  we  call  our  "  Christian  cities," 
the  tramp,  tramp,  of  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men? 

There  are  few  things  about  which  the  masses  of  our 
people  are  more  ignorant,  than  of  the  number  and  move- 
ments cT  our  criminal  population.  The  almost  universal 
tendency  is  to  under-estimate  rather  than  over-estimate 
the  wide-spread  extent  of  crime.  The  more  one  looks 
into  the  matter,  the  vaster  grows  the  multitude,  until 
he  stands  appalled  at  the  armies  of  criminals  that  file 
before  him.  It  will  startle  many,  the  statement  that  one 
in  sixty  of  the  present  population  of  the  United  States 
is  either  in  prison  or  ought  to  be  there.  Exact  statis- 
tics cannot,  of  course,  be  given ;  but  from  the  statistics 
that  are  at  hand,  estimates  may  be  made  that  will  not 
be  far  from  the  truth. 

The  most  thorough  and  reliable  prison  report  ever 
made  in  this  country,  is  that  of  Carroll  D.  Wright,  U.  S. 
Commissioner  of  Labor,  in  his  volume,  '*  Convict  Labor." 
He  gives  sixty-four  thousand  three  hundred  and  forty- 
nine  as  the  number  who,  in  the  penitentiaries,  jails,  and 
reformatories  of  the  United  States,  are  engaged  in  con- 
vict labor;  but  he  makes  no  attempt  to  enumerate  the 
convicts  who  are  not  so  engaged.  In  his  catalogue  are 
only  one  hundred  and  fifteen  jails,  whereas  there  are  in 


Dying  at  the    Top.  39 

the  whole  country  two  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven  counties,  each  of  which  has  its  place  for  the  con- 
finement of  prisoners.  Apply  to  these  counties  the  pro- 
portion, for  instance,  given  for  fifty-two  counties  in  Ala- 
bama, and  Mr.  Wright's  sixty-four  thousand  are  increased 
to  one  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand.  That  this  num- 
ber is  too  low,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  very  few  of 
the  jails  in  our  older  and  more  thickly  populated  states 
are  among  those  giv^en  by  the  commissioner.  In  the 
jails  and  houses  of  correction  of  only  fourteen  counties  of 
Massachusetts,  there  are  recorded  four  thousand  con- 
victs. In  New  York  State,  outside  of  its  penitentiaries, 
there  were  last  year,  according  to  Wm.  M.  Round,  of  the 
Prison  Association,  twelve  thousand  five  hundred  and 
thirty-five  convicts  in  penal  institutions.  This  would 
make  for  New  York's  sixty  counties  an  average  each  of 
over  two  hundred  criminals,  instead  of  nineteen,  the  aver- 
age for  Alabama. 

Mr.  Wright  has  no  statistics  at  all  from  Delaware, 
Idaho,  Montana,  and  Utah.  The  jails  and  lockups  of 
New  York  City  and  the  crowded  criminal  institutions  of 
Blackwell  Island  are  not  in  his  list. 

None  of  the  city  jails  of  such  places  as  Philadelphia, 
Pittsburg,  Buffalo,  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Chicago  and 
St.  Louis  have  a  place  in  this  report,  because  having  no 
connection  with  the  question  of  convict  labor.  It  is 
placing  figures  inside  the  facts,  rather  than  outside,  to 
say  that  at  any  given  time  in  the  United  States  there 
are  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  convicts  in  its 
prisons,  jails,  and  houses  of  refuge  and  correction. 

Mr.  Round,  in  "Our  Criminals  and  Christianity," 
says:  "  By  the  best  authorities  it  is  reckoned  that  not 
more  than  one-fifth  of  the  active  criminals  are  in  prison 
at  one  time."  This  would  give  our  country  a  criminal 
population  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  all  of 
whom,  within  no  great  period  of  time,  have  actually  been 
convicted  of  violations  of  law.  So,  say  the  same  "best 
authorities,"  only  about  one- twelfth  of  all  those  whose 
living  depends  on  crime,  arc  ever  convicted  and  punished. 


40  Dying  at  the    Top, 

Place  the  proportion  as  low  as  one-seventh,  and,  on  the 
basis  of  the  above  estimates,  we  have  a  criminal  popula- 
tion of  over  one  million,  or  more  than  one  for  every  sixty 
of  our  present  population.  If  this  looks  too  large, 
remember  that  in  the  year  ending  September  30,  1886, 
there  filed  through  the  penal  and  reformatory  institu- 
tions of  Pennsylvania  alone,  an  army  of  fifty-seven  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  seventeen,  most  of  them 
arrested  and  confined  for  petty  offenses,  but  criminals 
none  the  less.  Some  of  these  may  have  been  arrested 
more  than  once  in  the  year,  but  not  a  large  proportion  of 
them.  Louisville,  with  a  population  of  two  hundred 
thousand,  averages  near  eight  thousand  arrests  a  year, 
or  one  arrest  for  every  twenty-five  of  its  inhabitants; 
and  Louisville  is  as  orderly  and  law-abiding  as  any  city 
of  its  size  in  the  land. 

Now  apply  to  the  above  general  estimates  the  propor- 
tion of  seventy  per  cent,  for  young  men ;  and  subtracting 
one-tenth  for  female^ convicts,  you  have  in  prison  at  this 
date,  in  round  numbers,  ninety  thousand  young  men, 
and  five  hundred  thousand  who  are  either  now  or 
have  been  convicted  and  incarcerated  criminals — being 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  more  than  those  young 
men  who  now  make  a  profession  of  Christianity  in  the 
churches  in  this  great  land. 

Three-fourths  of  these  young  men  are  native-born 
Americans  and  have  had  from  childhood  the  opportu- 
nities of  Christian  civilization.  In  the  northern  states 
seven-eighths  of  them  have  had  more  or  less  education, 
and  cannot  plead  ignorance  for  their  crimes;  and  a  sur- 
prisingly large  majority  of  them  have  had  more  or  less 
of  religious  training.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
two  prisoners  received  into  the  Western  Pennsylvania 
prison,  only  5.34  per  cent,  had  no  religious  belief.  Of 
three  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two  received  into 
the  work-house  of  Allegheny  County,  Pennsylvania,  in 
1886,  all  but  one  hundred  and  seven  had  had  religious 
trainino-.  Of  six  hundred  and  sixty-eight  received  in 
Joliet   prison,    111.,   in     1886,    all    but    forty-three    had 


Dying  at  the   Top.  41 

attended  Sabbath-school  in  the  different  churches.  Of 
eight  hundred  and  fifteen  received  in  Sing  Sing  prison, 
six  hundred  and  sixty-nine  had  attended  Sunday  school 
when  boys.  In  four  years  ending  September  30,  1881, 
there  were  admitted  to  the  Michigan  penitentiary  one 
thousand  one  hundred  and  twenty  convicts — six  hundred 
and  seventeen  of  whom  came  from  homes  where  either 
one  or  both  parents  were  pious. 

This  condition  of  things  grows  more  dark  and  fore- 
boding when  we  learn  that  crime  in  our  country  is 
increasing  with  greater  rapidity  than  the  population,  and 
that  it  is  having  its  largest  increase  from  the  youth  of 
American  homes.  The  prisons  of  the  land  are  crowded 
beyond  their  capacity,  and  the  cry  to  thelegislatures  every- 
where is,  we  must  have  more  cell-room.  In  the  reforma- 
tories of  the  United  States  there  are  ten  thousand  boys, 
ranging  from  seven  years  to  seventeen  years  of  age,  most  of 
whom  have  been  committed  for  the  same  crimes  that  are 
sending  adults  to  the  penitentiaries.  Pennsylvania,  for  the 
year  ending  September  30,  1886,  had  more  children  in 
its  House  of  Refuge  and  Reform  School  than  it  had 
convicts  in  both  of  its  penitentiaries.  Among  the  arrests 
by  the  police  of  New  York  City  in  1886  were  two 
thousand  two  hundred  and  forty-eight  boys  and  one 
thousand  and  fifty  girls,  under  fourteen  years  of  age.  In 
the  Kentucky  penitentiary,  from  January  i,  1880,  to 
December  16,  1886,  eight  hundred  and  fifty-nine  boys 
between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty  years  of  age, 
were  committed.  Rev.  W.  W.  Hill,  chaplain  of  the 
California  State  Prison  at  San  Quentin,  states  in  his 
report  for  1886:  "During  the  last  four  years,  notwith- 
standing the  large  percentage  of  discharges  the  num- 
ber (of  boys)  present  has  increased  from  forty  to  eighty, 
or  one  hundred  per  cent.  How  much  longer  can  we 
be  indifferent  to  conclusions  •resulting  from  such  facts? 
A  few  more  one  hundred  per  cent,  increases  and  a  new 
State  prison  must  be  built  for  the  accommodation  of 
juvenile  criminals  alone." 

The  biennial  report  of  th^  Western  Penitentiary  of 


42  Dying  at  the   Top, 

Pennsylvania  gives  the  "  prison  population "  from  1826 
to  1886.  Taking  the  catalogue  by  decades,  and  with  the 
exception  of  that  from  1846  to  1856,  the  increase  of 
convicts  has  been  far  beyond  the  increase  of  Pennsyl- 
vania's population  for  corresponding  decades.  The 
decade  ending  1846  shows  an  increase  of  prisoners  of 
seventy-one  per  cent,  over  that  ending  1836.  The 
decade  ending  1866  shows  sixty-one  per  cent,  increase 
over  that  ending  1856.  The  decade  ending  1876,  shows 
eight3^-one  per  cent,  increase  over  that  ending  1866;  and 
that  ending  1886,  shows  an  increase  of  fifty-eight  per 
cent,  over  the  decade  ending  1876.  In  all  this  sweep 
of  sixty  years,  the  very  highest  advance  Pennsylvania 
has  made  in  her  population  in  any  decade  is  thirty-three 
and  one-third  per  cent. 

The  prison  reports  for  1873  showed  a  prison  popu- 
lation throughout  the  country  of  eighteen  thousand 
four  hundred  and  ninety-two.  According  to  the  report 
of  Carroll  D.  Wright,  the  same  prisons  in  1886  held 
thirty-three  thousand  six  hundred  and  thirty-eight  con- 
victs, an  increase  of  nearly  eighty-two  per  cent.;  whereas 
the  whole  population  of  the  United  States  increased  in 
the  same  period  not  forty  per  cent.  In  other  words,  so 
far  as  prison  statistics  afford  a  basis  for  judgment,  crime 
in  1886  was  more  than  twice  as  prevalent  as  it  was  only 
thirteen  years  before. 

Wm.  M.  F.  Round  tells  us  in  his  "Our  Criminals 
and  Christianity,"  that  from  1880  to  1886,  whilst  the 
population  of  New  York  State  increased  twenty  per 
cent.,  that  of  her  penal  institutions  increased  thirty-three 
per  cent. 

Frederick  H.  Wines  has  an  article  in  his  paper  of 
July,  1887,  The  International  Record,  on  "The  Increase 
of  Crime."  From  statistics  that  he  presents,  crime  is 
two  and  one-half  times  more  prevalent  in  Pennsylvania 
than  it  was  fifty  years  ago;  in  New  Jersey,  three  times 
more  prevalent;  in  Maine  crime  has  advanced  thirty- 
seven  per  cent,  in  twenty  years.  In  Illinois  the  ratio  of 
convictions  is  more  than  two  and  one-half  times  what  it 


Dying  at  the   Top.  43 

was  thirty  years  ago.  "  In  three  states,  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  and  New  Hampshire,  the  percentage  of 
increase,  above  that  of  the  general  population,  in  fifty 
years,  has  been  one  hundred  and  fifty-two. 

"  In  four  states — including  Illinois  with  those  already 
named — the  percentage  of  increase  has  been  one  hundred 
and  four. 

"  In  seven  states — including  Maine,  Iowa  and  Min- 
nesota— the  percentage  of  increase  for  twenty  years  has 
been  thirty-six.  These  seven  states  include  nearly  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  population,  and  it  is  fair  to  presume 
that  there  are  more  than  one-third  more  convictions  now 
in  the  entire  country,  in  proportion  to  the  population, 
than  there  were  twenty  years  ago,  at  the  close  of  the 
war." 

The  seventeenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Allegheny 
County  (Pa.)  Work-house  gives  its  population  from 
1870  to  1886.  The  number  sent  into  it  from  Pittsburg 
alone  in  1870,  was  eight  hundred  and  fifty- three;  the 
number  sent  in  1886  was  two  thousand,  eight  hundred 
and  seventy-eight,  an  increase  in  sixteen  years  of  two 
hundred  and  thirty-six  per  cent.  If  the  general  popula- 
tion of  that  city  had  kept  pace  in  its  increase  with  the 
increase  of  its  criminals,  Pittsburg  to-day  would  have  a 
population  of  over  two  million  souls,  instead  of  two 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  thousand  for  both  Pittsburg 
and  Allegheny.  Says  General  Brinkerhoff  of  Ohio:  ''So 
startling  is  the  increase  of  crime,  that  it  is  very  evident 
that  society  itself  is  in  jeopardy,  unless  something  is 
done  to  arrest  and  reverse  this  order  of  growth.  Ac- 
cording to  the  United  States  census,  crime  has  more 
than  doubled  every  ten  years  for  half  a  century  past,  and 
still  the  tide  is  rising.  It  is  evident  something  must  be 
done,  or  we  die." 

The  foregoing  statistics  are  part  of  our  country's 
census,  as  much  so  as  those  given  relating  to  our  crops, 
or  mines,  or  colleges,  or  churches.  They  demand  the 
consideration  of  every  lover  of  his  country.      Emerson 


44  Dying  at  the  Top, 

never  spoke  wiser  words  than  these  attributed  to  ht» 
pen:  "The  true  test  of  civilization  is  not  the  census,  nor 
the  size  of  cities,  nor  the  crops;  no;  but  the  kind  of  men 
the  country  turns  outr 


CHAPTER  IV. 


WASTE. 


Young  man,  I  have  just  passed  my  fiftieth  birthday. 
So  far  as  I  know  there  is  not  a  broken  organ  in  my 
body.  If  it  were  not  for  indications  outside  of  my 
person,  in  my  grown  children  and  in  the  records  of  the 
old  family  Bible,  I  would  not  know  that  I  was  over 
twenty-five  years  old.  I  cannot  find  at  any  point  a 
single  trace  of  the  wear  and  tear  of  half  a  century.  Yet 
have  I  gone  under  the  billows  of  the  severest  bereave- 
ment; have  had  vexations  and  trials  all  through  my 
public  life,  and  have  had  bodily  afflictions  that  would 
have  sent  me  to  the  grave  if  I  had  ever  been  dissipated 
in  any  form. 

These  bodies  God  has  given  us  for  the  first  dwelling- 
place  of  the  soul  are  magnificent  creations.  They  can 
stand  almost  any  strain  upon  them,  provided  it  comes 
in  harmony  with  their  laws.  They  are  made  to  bear  us 
and  serve  us  for  one  hundred  ^-xars,  and  then  to  let  our 
souls  out  at  the  grave  with  the  ease  and  peace  of  one 
alighting  from  the  chariot  of  a  king. 

But  the  draft  you  are  making  on  your  body,  young 
man,  is  the  waste  of  dissipation.  Because  of  your  sin- 
ful excesses,  the  doom  of  the  wicked  will  fall  on  you,  and 
you  will  not  Hve  out  half  your  days.  At  fifty,  as  I  turn 
to  look  back,  I  find  that  I  have  nearly  outlived  the  sec- 
ond generation  of  fast  young  men.  Those  of  my  boy- 
hood days,  who  had  as  good  bodies  as  my  own,  but  who 


Dying  at  the   lop.  45 

subjected  them  to  the  drain  of  indulged  passions,  have 
been  in  their  graves  for  fifteen  and  twenty  years.  Many 
who  were  born  in  the  beginning  of  my  ministry,  and 
"sowed  their  wild  oats,"  are  already  dead,  and  those  who 
remain  are  broken  and  diseased,  dragging  out  the  end  ol 
their  short  careers  in  misery. 

Any  one  who  studies  carefully  the  mortuary  lists 
will  find  a  critical  period  of  human  life  at  infancy.  In  the 
vital  statistics  of  Ohio  for  1885,  one-sixth  of  the  deaths 
fall  within  the  first  and  second  year.  The  proportion  of 
deaths  gradually  diminishes  till  we  come  to  the  columns 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  years,  and  from  twenty- five 
to  thirty,  when  there  is  a  sudden  rise  in  the  number.  We 
all  understand  the  secret  of  so  great  mortality  at  infancy. 
It  is  owing  to  the  risks  of  birth  and  the  exposure  of 
babyhood.  But  why  should  we  reach  another  critical 
period  at  about  the  twenty-fifth  year?  At  that  period 
the  body  should  be  at  the  beginning  of  its  manhood 
prime. 

Theorizers  have  imagined  that  human  Hfe  has  a  kind 
of  wave  motion,  unseen  and  inexplicable,  yet  real.  We 
come  into  life  at  birth  in  the  trough  of  the  wave.  At 
about  three  years  of  age  the  billow  begins  to  rise,  and 
remains  at  its  crest  till  about  twenty,  when  it  begins  to 
sink,  till  at  twenty-five  the  greatest  depression  is  again 
reached.  Then  comes  another  swell  that  does  not  have 
its  corresponding  descent  till  fifty. 

Practical  people  have  no  difficulty  in  accounting  for 
these  upward  and  downward  movements  of  the  mortu- 
ary lines.  At  about  fifteen  years  of  age  young  girls  fall 
into  the  foolish  customs  of  society,  and  expose  their 
health  by  only  half  dressing  themselves.  They  "  catch 
cold  " ;  important  organs  are  disturbed ;  in  many  instances 
rapid  decline  follows  and  between  twenty  and  twenty- 
five  comes  death.  It  is  only  the  wave-motion  of 
exposure. 

At  the  same  age  young  men  begin  to  have  what 
they  call  "  fun."  Their  dissipation  makes  heavy  drafts 
on  the  kidneys  and  lungs ;  digestion  is  broken,  and  the 


46  Dying  at  the  Top, 

heart's  action  enfeebled.     The  twenty-fifth  year  comes 
round,  and  a  wasted  manhood  sinks  into  an  early  grave. 

Young  man, you  are  not  ignorant ;  you  know  what  I 
say  is  true — that  the  sinking  of  your  chances  after  twenty 
is  through  your  early  vices. 

Miss  Willard  quotes  Quetelet,  the  famous  statis- 
tician, as  having  made  a  special  study  of  the  statistics  of 
European  life  insurance  companies,  and  that  he  had 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  time  of  greatest  risk  (or 
highest  death  rate),  in  men's  lives  is  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  years.  She  adds  very  wisely:  "  Unhappily  the  rea- 
son is  not  far  to  seek.  Indulgence  in  tobacco,  alcoholics, 
and  impurity,  if  begun  in  early  life,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  will  have  reported  themselves  back  in  the  wretched 
sequels  of  deterioration,  often  even  unto  death." 

The  following  extract  is  from  a  physician  whose 
name  I  cannot  give.  But  the  words  are  too  true  to  be 
omitted  at  this  point. 

"It  is  a  sad  but  unavoidable  reflection  that  thousands 
of  men  who  should  be  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  country, 
pillars  of  society,  of  the  church  and  of  the  State,  are 
broken  down,  both  physically  and  mentally,  before  they 
have  reached  the  zenith  of  their  usefulness.  Early  indis- 
cretions, the  results  of  ignorance  and  folly;  over-exertion 
of  both  mind  and  body,  induced  by  inordinate  ambition, 
dissipation  and  exposure,  are  continually  working  the 
ruin  of  thousands  whose  ability,  energy  and  integrity  the 
world  needs  to  preserve  the  equilibnum  of  civilization. 
Some  fall  before  they  have  yet  entered  the  arena  of 
active  life,  while  many  more,  enervated  by  the  effects  of 
youthful  folly,  after  a  few  years  of  ambitious  labor,  find 
themselves  incompetent  for  the  arduous  duties  of  busi- 
ness and  professional  life,  and  are  forced  to  retire  igno- 
miniously  from  the  field  of  action  to  meet  an  untimely 
death,  or  to  drag  out  a  weary  and  unsatisfactory  exist- 
ence, incapacitated  for  both  the  duties  and  enjoyments 
of  life.  In  the  capacity  of  physicians  it  is  our  duty  to 
ignore  all  false  delicacy  and  speak  plainly  on  this  sub- 
ject, that  the  young  may  have  due  warning  to   shun 


Dying  at  the   Top.  47 

unnatural  practices  that  lead  to  the  subversion  of  man- 
hood and  the  loss  of  everything  that  makes  life  desirable. 
Let  us  also  warn  the  unhappy  victims  of  follies  that  are 
past  undoing  to  improve  the  means  of  restoration  while 
there  is  still  hope.  The  reality  is  beyond  adequate 
description.  In  its  track  we  find  the  ravages  of  loath- 
some disease,  physical,  mental  and  moral  degradation, 
disrupted  homes,  asylums  filled  with  imbeciles,  and 
graves  that  have  kindly  thrown  the  mantle  of  oblivion 
over  wasted  lives." 

What  brings  a  blight  on  your  body,  brings  a  worse 
blight  on  your  immortal  soul.  You  are  in  the  slow  but 
sure  process  of  exhausting  all  the  higher  elements  of  your 
manhood.  The  tenderness  of  your  affections;  the  keen- 
ness of  your  sympathies;  the  kindliness  of  your  minis- 
trations; your  sensitiveness  against  wrong;  your  respect 
for  the  opinions  and  rights  of  others;  your  reverence  for 
truth;  your  devoutness  toward  your  God,  are  oozing 
away  under  these  nights  of  revelry;  and  before  you  are 
many  years  older,  you  will  have  undergone  that  awful 
transformation  that  makes  a  brute  of  the  man.  A 
brute  !  Why  degrade  an  animal  by  comparing  it  with  a 
human  being  whose  manhood  is  wasted.  What  animal 
will  take  the  life  of  its  own  kin?  Will  turn  its  own  lair 
or  den  into  a  hell  of  wretchedness?  Will  go  howling 
among  the  homes  of  its  fellows,  making  itself  a  terror, 
when  it  should  be  a  support  and  defense?  The  Bible 
stories  of  Cain  killing  his  brother  through  jealousy;  of 
the  sons  of  Jacob,  selling  Joseph  into  bondage  out  of 
petty  spite;  of  the  sons  of  Eli  robbing  the  people  and 
living  in  lust  among  the  fallen  women  of  the  city;  of 
Absalom  stealing  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and,  under 
cover  of  filial  reverence  and  of  godliness,  leaving  Jerusa- 
lem, to  drive  his  father  from  his  home,  are  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  the  features  of  a  barbarous  era;  but  they 
are  being  repeated  all  over  our  country  to-day,  by  sons 
who,  in  the  indulgence  of  sinful  passions,  have  turned 
their  hearts  into  stone. 

In  a  city  with  whose  homes  I  am  familiar,  I  select  a 


48  Dying  at  the   Top, 

section  of  thirteen  squares  in  one  direction  and  four  in  the 
other,  making  a  parallelogram  of  fifty-two  blocks.  In  this 
area  within  a  single  generation,  I  know  of  sixty  young 
men  who  have  "gone  to  the  bad."  How  many  others 
there  may  have  been,  in  this  section,  among  families  with 
which  I  am  not  acquainted,  I  do  not  know.  But  here 
are  sixty  that  I  do  know.  Not  one  of  them  is  from  a  poor 
family,  or  that  of  foreigners.  They  are  Americans  and 
from  good  homes.  Most  of  them  are  from  Christian 
households,  and  have  had  an  education  both  in  the  day 
schools  and  Sabbath  schools.  Some  have  fallen  through 
drink;  some  through  licentiousness;  some  are  dead-beats; 
some  of  them  are  tramps ;  some  gamblers ;  some  are  dead 
— dead  either  from  self-violence  or  the  violence  of  others* 
The  drain  they  have  made  on  human  hearts  and  human 
homes,  no  one  but  God  can  know.  The  days  of  wretched- 
ness to  loved  ones,  and  nights  of  painful  anxious  watch- 
ing, will  be  revealed  only  when  the  books  of  the  last  day 
are  opened.  One,  after  receiving  his  education  for  life, 
marries  a  harlot,  and  is  wasting  his  substance  in  riotous 
living,  and  at  the  same  time  wasting  the  peace  and  sun- 
shine of  parental  hearts.  Another  marries  a  young  girl, 
lives  with  her  long  enough  to  bring  a  child  to  her  arms, 
and  then  blights  her  life  by  running  away  with  another 
man's  wife.  A  third  marries  a  young  girl  who  is  sup- 
porting her  home  comfortably  from  her  employment,  and 
takes  her  away  from  her  income  under  promise  of  sup- 
porting her  himself.  In  course  of  time  a  child  comes  to 
their  home,  when  he  deserts  her  for  another  woman;  and 
to  secure  money  to  spend  on  his  villainies,  takes  his 
baby  out  of  its  cradle  and  sells  the  cradle.  The  poor 
young  mother  loses  a  husband,  sacrifices  a  lucrative  posi- 
tion, and  is  left  with  a  child  in  her  arms  to  struggle  alone 
with  the  hardships  of  life,  while  the  base  scoundrel  who 
called  himself  her  husband  goes  his  way  to  turn  the 
sweetness  of  other  lives  into  gall.  So  the  whole  dread- 
ful roll  could  be  called,  every  one  as  he  marches  through 
his  career  of  self-indulgence,  trampling  under  his  feet  the 
hearts  of  fathers  and  mothers  and  wives,  and  sending 


Dying  at  the   Top.  49 

their  wails  of  bitterness  before  him  to  the  presence  of  a 
patient  but  just  God. 

The  picture  I  have  drawn  is  by  no  means  excep- 
tional. It  is  true  of  every  town  and  city  in  this  land. 
All  around,  Davids  are  going  up  to  the  ^'chamber  over 
the  gate,"  weeping  and  crying,  "O  my  son  Absalom  I 
My  son,  my  son  Absalom  !  Would  God  I  had  died  for 
thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!"  Rachels  are 
mourning  for  their  children  and  refusing  to  be  comforted, 
while  you,  young  man,  are  having  your  "good  times" 
with  your  boon  companions. 

Rev.  J.J.  Talbot,  who  is  mentioned  in  the  follow- 
ing clipping  from  one  of  our  dailies,  acted  as  a  supply  at 
one  time  in  the  Episcopal  church  of  my  own  city.  He 
liad  the  natural  gifts  to  fit  him  for  any  position  in  life. 
His  career  of  dissipation  had  a  very  small  beginning — 
the  sipping  of  the  wine  cup  after  communion.  He  was 
never  willingly  a  victim  to  his  passion.  At  times  he 
would  shut  himself  up  for  days  that  he  might  overcome 
the  awful  thirst  for  intoxicants,  but  the  demon  within 
him  conquered  him  at  last,  and  he  died  under  its  spell. 
The  following  extract  is  given  because  it  shows,  in  words 
of  pitiful   pathos,   the  waste  of  dissipation  : 

The  Drink  Demon. — J.  J.  Talbot,  once  a  minister 
of  the  gospel,  then  a  brilliant  lawyer  and  member  of 
Congress,  lately  died  at  South  Bend,  Ind.,  from  the 
effects  of  strong  drink.  Mr.  Colfax  heard  him  speak  in 
the  following  strain  shortly  before  his  death  : 

"But  now  that  the  struggle  is  over,  I  can  survey  the 
field  and  measure  the  losses.  I  had  position  high  and 
holy.  This  demon  tore  from  around  me  the  robes  of  my 
sacred  office,  and  sent  me  forth  churchless  and  godless,  a 
very  hissing  by-word  among  men.  Afterward  I  had 
business,  large  and  lucrative,  and  my  voice  in  all  large 
courts  was  heard  pleading  for  justice,  mercy  and  the 
right.  But  the  dust  gathered  on  my  un-open  books,  and 
no  footfall  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  drunkard's  office. 
I  had  money  ample  for  all  necessities,  but  it  took  wings 
and  went  to  feed  the  coffers  of  the  devils  which  possessed 


50  Dying  at  the  Top, 

me.  I  had  a  home  adorned  with  all  that  wealth  and  the 
most  exquisite  taste  could  suggest.  The  devil  crossed 
its  threshold  and  the  ligrht  faded  from  its  chambers;  the 
fire  went  out  on  the  holiest  of  altars,  and,  leading  me 
through  its  portals,  despair  walked  forth  with  her,  and 
sorrow  and  anguish  lingered  within.  I  had  children, 
beautiful  to  me,  at  least,  as  a  dream  of  the  morning,  and 
they  had  so  entwined  themselves  around  their  father's 
heart  that,  no  matter  where  it  might  wander,  it  ever 
came  back  to  them  on  the  bright  wings  of  a  father's  un- 
derlying love.  This  destroyer  took  their  hands  in  his 
and  led  them  away.  I  had  a  wife  whose  charms  of  mind 
and  person  were  such  that  to  see  her  was  to  remember, 
and  to  know  her  was  to  love.  For  thirteen  years  we 
walked  the  rugged  path  of  life  together,  rejoicino^  in  its 
sunshine  and  sorrowing  in  its  shade.  This  infernal 
monster  couldn't  spare  me  even  this.  I  had  a  mother, 
who  for  long,  long  years  had  not  left  her  chair,  a  victim 
of  suffering  and  disease,  and  her  choicest  delight  was  the 
reflection  that  the  lessons  which  she  had  taught  at  her 
knee  had  taken  root  in  the  heart  of  her  youngest  born, 
and  that  he  was  useful  to  his  fellows  and  an  honor  to 
her  who  bore  him.  But  the  thunderbolt  reached  even 
there,  and  there  it  did  its  most  cruel  work.  Ah!  me; 
never  a  word  of  reproach  from  her  lips — only  a  tender 
caress;  only  a  shadow  of  a  great  and  unspoken  griet 
gathered  over  the  dear  old  face;  only  a  trembling  hand 
laid  more  lovingly  on  my  head;  only  a  closer  clinging  to 
the  cross;  only  a  more  piteous  appeal  to  heaven  if  her 
cup  at  last  were  not  full.  And  while  her  boy  raved  in 
his  wild  delirium  two  thousand  miles  away,  the  pitying 
angels  pushed  the  golden  gates  ajar,  and  the  mother  of 
the  drunkard  entered  into  rest. 

"  And  thus  I  stand ;  a  clergyman  without  a  cure;  a 
barrister  without  brief  or  business;  a  father  without  a 
child;  a  husband  without  a  wife;  a  son  without  a  parent; 
a  man  with  scarcely  a  friend ;  a  soul  without  a  hope — all 
swallowed  up  in  the  maelstrom  of  drink." 


Dyivg  at  the   V}>p.  51 

This  destructive  work  of  yours,  young  man,  does 
not  end  with  yourself  and  your  home.  Your  loss  of 
personal  honor  and  intec^rity  sends  you  into  the  world  as 
a  dangerous  element.  You  are  to  enter  into  positions 
of  responsibility  only  to  betray  the  confidences  placed 
in  you.  You  are  educating  yourself  to  become  an 
absconding  clerk,  a  defaulting  treasurer;  to  draw  on  the 
funds  of  others  to  meet  your  own  losses  in  reckless 
speculations;  to  unite  with  bands  of  others  like  yourself 
to  "  beat"  your  employers  out  of  their  honest  gains;  to 
become  a  "boomer"  and  rob  the  innocent  through 
fictitious  values  placed  on  bonds  and  stocks  and  real 
estate;  to  enter  some  city  council,  or  jury  room,  or 
legislature,  and  there  squander  the  public  funds  to  meet 
the  demands  of  your  godless  ambition  ;  to  go  to  the  polls  in 
public  elections  to  sell  your  own  vote  and  buy  the  votes  of 
others,  and  so  defraud  communities  out  of  their  just 
decisions. 

Good  people  are  astounded  to-day  at  the  columns 
on  columns  in  our  newspapers,  filled  with  the  vil- 
lainies of  men  who  have  occupied  positions  of  respon- 
sibility. Indianapolis  was  startled  in  January  last  to 
learn  that  Joseph  A.  Moore — a  trusted  citizen  and  high 
member  of  the  church — had  robbed  the  Connecticut  Life 
Insurance  Company  out  of  half  a  million  dollars,  and 
still  more  startled  to  learn  that  at  his  headquarters  this 
robbery  had  been  systematically  carried  on  for  ten 
years.  At  present,  Louisiana  is  disturbed  over  the 
fraudulent  issue  of  bondp  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars.  The  enormous  piunderings  of 
New  York  City  and  Brooklyn  have  become  famous  the 
world  over.  Through  "jobs"  the  capital  at  Albany, 
New  York,  has  already  cost  eighteen  million  dollars. 
Its  ceiling  was  the  work  of  downright  rascality.  Harpers 
Weekly  says:  "It  will  remind  the  spectator  that  the 
shrewdest  people  under  the  sun  can  scarcely  hope  to 
put  up  an  honest  public  building." 

"John  C.  Eno,  who  was  a  banker  in  New  York  City, 
and  succeeded  in  stealing  over  four  million  dollars  from 


52  Dying  at  the  Top, 

the  Second  National  Bank,  is  living  at  present  in  Que- 
bec, the  ancient  capital  of  Canada,  in  a  beautiful  house  on 
the  St.  Foye  road,  for  which  he  paid  seventy-five  thou- 
sand dollars  of  his  ill-gotten  gains.  He  is  living  sur- 
rounded by  his  wife  and  family,  and  putting  on  a  great 
deal  of  style,  as  he  has  the  entree  of  the  best  society. 
He  is  frequently  seen  at  the  receptions  given  by  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor." 

"Thomas  Axworthy  lives  in  Windsor  temporarily. 
His  absence  is  enforced  by  reason  of  his  having  stolen 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars  from  the  municipality  of 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  while  acting  as  treasurer  of  the  corpora-  • 
tion. 

"  Henr>'  Dilckman,  who  robbed  an  insurance  com- 
pany in  St.  Louis  of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars,  is  a 
fellow-townsman  of  Axworthy." 

Such  extracts  as  these  could  be  given  by  the  score. 

The  New  York  Sun  is  responsible  for  the  statement 
that  the  stockholders  of  the  great  railroads  running  west 
and  south-west  from  New  York  have  been  swindled  out 
of  forty  million  dollars.  "By  crooked  manipulation  and 
adroit  financiering  the  officers  in  power  have  played  the 
part  of  thieves,  and  with  their  aggrandizement  depreciated 
the  value  of  stocks  and  wrecked  the  roads  whose  affairs 
they  were  elected  to  supervise."  Charles  Francis  Adams,, 
an  expert  in  railroad  affairs,  is  quoted  as  saying  that  this 
uneasy  and  unsatisfactory  position  of  the  railroad  system 
of  the  country  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  "  the  covetous- 
ness,  want  of  good  faith,  and  low  moral  tone  of  those  in 
whose  hands  the  management  of  the  railroad  system 
now  is.'' 

The  career  of  Henry  S.  Ives,  a  young  man  not  yet 
thirty  years  old,  is  a  romance  of  iniquity.  Through  the 
passion  for  wealth,  public  men  gathered  round  him  and 
were  enchanted  with  his  financial  genius.  Without  one 
dollar  of  his  own,  he  came  to  be  the  wonder  of  Wall 
Street.     The  Courier -Journal  says  of  him : 

"  The  public  considered  him  as  a  thief,  but  so  long 
as  the  law  did  not  the  matter  was  but  a  trifle.     In  his 


Dying  at  the   Top,  53 

€arly  attempt  upon  the  road  he  had  drawn  in  with  him 
a  man  of  recognized  wealth  and  great  honesty.  When 
the  thief  was  called  into  court,  suspicion  fell  upon  this 
man  too,  and  the  blow  killed  him.  The  unscrupulous 
broker  immediately  formed  a  plan  to  rob  his  estate, 
amounting  to  seven  million  dollars.  He  was  detected  and 
brought  into  court.  This  time  he  could  not  blind  justice, 
and  the  whole  tale  of  the  life  and  crimes  of  this  man,  Henry 
S.  Ives,  is  coming  out.  Forgery  and  perjury  have  been 
his  most  frequent  instruments,  and  he  has  hesitated  at 
nothing.  He  has  stolen  millions  of  dollars,  and  has 
proved  himself  one  of  the  most  daring  freebooters  of  the 
age. 

Chicago  is  scarcely  out  of  its  excitement  over  the 
•daring  of  the  Anarchists,  till  it  is  startled  by  the  great 
conspiracy  to  murder  Dr.  Cronin.  For  bribery  and 
lawlessness,  this  will  stand  unparalleled  in  the  history 
of  American  courts. 

"Luther  Laflin  Mills,  who  is  one  of  the  lawyers 
assisting  the  prosecution  in  the  Cronin  case,  and  who  is 
not  an  alarmist  by  any  means,  said  yesterday  to  a 
group  of  reporters  :  '  I  weigh  well  the  meaning  of  my 
words.  I  fully  appreciate  the  delicacy  of  the  position 
which  I  occupy,  and  I  will  say  that  in  the  history  of 
criminal  trials  there  has  been  no  more  unscrupulous, 
audacious  or  wicked  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  cause 
of  justice  than  there  has  been  in  the  Cronin  case.  It  is 
appalling  on  account  of  its  effrontery,  its  utter  disregard 
of  the  law,  and  its  defiance  of  every  known  code  of 
honor,  honesty  and  legality.  There  has  been  nothing 
like  it  in  the  history  of  this  country.  There  has  been 
no  such  crime  attempted  against  American  law  in  my 
recollection,  nor  do  I  find  any  such  attempt  to  pervert 
justice  in  the  reading  of  the  history  of  my  country.'" 

Grave  citizens  are  reading  these  things  and  saying 
under  their  breath,  what  does  it  all  mean?  Is  there  any 
man  whom  we  can  trust  ? 

There  is  no  mystery  whatever  in  this  condition  of 
things.     It  is  simply  natural  causes  working  out  their 


54  Dying  at  the  Top, 

effects.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns  nor  figs  of 
thistles.  These  public  plunderers  and  plotters  are  not 
all  at  present  young  men;  but  they  were  once  young 
men.  In  early  life  their  moral  characters  became 
vitiated,  and  robbery  has  become  second  nature  to  them. 
And,  if  something  is  not  done  to  elevate  and  christianize 
the  conscience  of  the  present  rising  generation  of  boys 
and  young  men,  the  future  will  be  as  the  present,  full  of 
the  wrongs  which  one  portion  of  society  commits  against 
the  other;  our  property  will  become  less  safe  from  the 
threats  of  the  anarchist;  our  lives  less  secure  from  the 
burglar  and  highwayman ;  our  investments  will  be  more 
and  more  jeopardized  by  the  speculator;  our  elections 
will  pass  even  more  fully  than  to-day  into  the  hands  of 
the  briber  and  ''  boodler,"  and  our  whole  administration 
of  justice  become  a  by-word  and  a  scorn  to  other 
nations  of  the  earth.  The  mere  fact  that  this  is  a  free 
country,  and  that  it  is  the  people  who  govern,  will  not 
save  us  from  the  ruin  that  has  come  on  earlier  Republics. 
Our  private  and  public  Hfe,  and  both  our  legislation  and 
administration,  must  be  based  on  righteousness,  or  we 
fall.  And  what  prospect  have  we  for  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,  so  long 
as  the  mass  of  our  young  men  have  no  fear  of  God 
before  their  eyes  ? 

Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  of  Columbus,  O.,  deliv- 
ered an  intensely  interesting  series  of  lectures  this  sum- 
mer at  Chautauqua,  on  some  of  the  social  and  political 
problems  of  the  day.  His  lecture  on  "Trusts"  was  a 
most  serious  and  convincing  portrayal  of  the  danger  of 
these  immense  combinations,  unless  they  are  carefully 
watched  and  guarded  by  the  people  and  their  represent- 
atives in  our  halls  of  legislation.  What  he  urged 
above  all  things  else  for  our  safety  was  a  higher  order  of 
conscientiousness  in  our  citizens.  After  the  lecture  I 
sent  him  a  copy  of  "Dying  at  the  Top"  and  asked  him 
the  question,  What  prospect  have  we  at  present  for  a 
higher  standard  of  conscientiousness  ?  It  was  asked  in 
no  captious  spirit,  but  in  all  seriousness.     Given,  the 


Dying  at  the   Top.  55 

young  men  of  the  hour  —  drifting  from  all  forms  of 
religious  life,  and  toying  with  the  serpent  that  tempts 
with  forbidden  fruits  —  and  there  is  no  prospect  of  a 
condition  of  things  any  better  than  we  have  at  present. 
I  have  faith  that  a  better  day  is  before  us,  but  it  will 
come  only  by  our  changing  the  existing  status  among 
our  young  men. 

Young  man,  I  wish  I  could  end  the  story  of  your 
waste  right  here.  But  I  must  take  you  where  you  have, 
now,  little  thought  of  ever  possessing  any  influence  for 
destruction.  You  look  on  death  as  the  end-all  of  your 
reckless  career,  except  as  you  may  live  to  reap  the 
fruits  of  your  folly.  You  make  two  mistakes  right  here; 
you  think  that  all  the  reaping  time  is  in  the  other  world 
and  that  the  sowing  time  is  wholly  in  this  world.  But 
observe  carefully  and  you  will  conclude  that  reaping  and 
sowing  are  never  wholly  separated  in  your  life.  The 
lassitude  and  pain  that  follow  on  the  day  after  a  night's 
debauch  are  in  the  harvest  time.  You  are  reaping  the 
whirlwind  the  very  instant  you  have  sowed  to  the  Vv^ind. 
There  are  reapings  of  remorse  and  despair  that  are 
reserved;  but  they  are  only  the  more  remote  results  that 
come  after  patient  nature  and  a  long-suffering  Heavenly 
Father  have  waited  for  you  to  repent  and  return.  But 
you  resist  the  warning  of  the  immediate  ingathering; 
by  and  by  nature  is  exhausted,  and  the  Spirit  is 
grieved  away,  and  then  you  are  abandoned  to  the 
extreme  consequences  of  your  long  course  of  sin,  and 
learn  that  it  is  not  a  figure  of  speech  where  the  Holy 
Scripture  prophesies  weeping  and  wailing  and  gnashing 
of  teeth  for  the  deeds  done  in  the  body.  After  death 
your  career  will  not  be  substantially  changed.  Your 
soul  will  be  out  of  the  body,  but  not  out  of  this  world. 
In  the  transition,  you  are  moved  to  a  higher  plane  of 
power  and  influence  by  having  your  spirit  set  loose  from 
the  limitations  of  a  material  body.  On  that  higher 
plane,  if  you  should  go  up  from  a  pure  and  righteous 
manhood  in  the  earthly  body,  you  would  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  multiply  your  good  works  for  others  and  your 


56  Dying  at  the  Tof. 

blessedness  for  yourself,  by — shall  I  say  a  hundred-fold 
or  a  thousand-fold  ? — by  a  "fold"  as  far  above  that  of  this 
earth  as  is  the  spiritual  above  the  material.  But  you 
choose  to  go  up  to  that  exalted  plane  from  a  debased  and 
debauched  manhood.  As  you  go  you  carry  with  you 
everything  but  your  body — your  memory,  your  passions, 
your  tastes,  your  propensities,  your  desires  for  unholy 
gratification,  your  hate,  your  vindictiveness,  and,  out 
there  in  that  land  of  spirits,  you  go  on  with  your  work 
just  as  you  did  here.  Can  that  be  so  ?  How  can  it  be 
otherwise?  My  dear  boy,  please  point  me  to  an  agent 
that  stops  its  influence  by  any  change  of  form,  or  even 
changes  the  character  of  its  influence. 

The  fuel  in  your  grates  is  consumed,  you  say ;  but 
that  means  only  that  the  elements  of  it  are  set  loose. 
The  water  and  the  gases  go  off  into  the  great  world 
outside,  and  the  earthy  matter  to  where  it  was  in  the 
earth  before  the  vital  powers  of  plant-life  took  it  up. 
Not  an  element  has  lost  its  being  nor  a  single  property 
it  possessed.  Each  takes  its  accustomed  place  in  the 
rounds  of  Nature's  work,  to  be,  and  to  do,  till  the  end  of 
time,  just  what  its  Maker  intended.  A  power,  be  it  vital 
or  spiritual,  when  once  sent  forth  from  the  Creator's 
brain,  never  halts  and  never  dies.  You  are  a  soul;  your 
body  is  only  its  primal  form;  in  death  you  are  no  less  a 
soul.  A  soul  is  God's  highest  form  of  influence;  being 
in  the  image  of  God,  that  influence  is,  in  its  nature, 
divine;  because  divine,  it  is  continuous  and  continual  in 
its  ever-increasing  sweep  and  power.  In  the  great 
future,  you  will  do  wrong  as  you  do  here;  you  will  break 
hearts,  and  wreck  fortunes,  and  trample  hopes — on  and 
on  and  on — unless  you  stop  right  where  you  are,  revolu- 
tionize your  conduct  and  return  to  the  God  whom  you 
have  despised.  Satan  and  his  associate  devils  were 
once  bright  angels  in  Heaven ;  they  fell  from  their  holiness 
as  you  have  fallen.  Did  they  cease  to  wield  an  influence 
to  destroy  ?  Are  they  not  now  those  very  fallen  souls 
that  are  possessing  men  and  gratifying  their  hate  and 


Dying  at  the   Top.  67 

revenge  by  ruining  what  God  intends  shall  be  saved  and 
exalted? 

Now,  halt,  young  man,  and  count  the  cost.  For  a 
sinful  gratification  you  are  filling  your  body  with  disease; 
preparing"  for  an  early  death;  corrupting  your  higher 
gifts;  loading  up  your  conscience  with  the  recollections 
of  hearts  and  homes  broken  and  dishonored;  of  property 
wasted;  of  society  disturbed;  of  law  violated;  of  God 
and  man  despised  and  wronged.  And  you  are  making 
forced  funereal  marches  to  the  doom  of  a  wicked,  wasted 
child  of  the  everlasting  Father. 


CHAPTER  V. 


WORMS   BENEATH   THE  BARK. 

With  the  young  men  of  American  homes  I  am  in 
profound  sympathy.  What  I  have  written  has  come  from 
a  heart  that  loves  them,  and  consents  to  reveal  their 
waywardness,  only  because,  by  so  doing,  they  may  be 
saved.  It  is  the  very  fewest  of  our  youth  who  go 
astray  from  desire  and  design.  The  great  mass  of  them 
think  they  can  sin  just  a  little  and  then  "  sober  up  "  and 
"  settle  down,"  as  many  of  their  fathers  have  done.  Many 
sin  because  they  have  never  known  anything  else.  A 
current  that  had  its  existence  before  they  were  born,  has 
taken  them  up  and  carried  them  along  on  its  easy  yet 
resistless  wave.  Thousands  of  our  criminals  never 
designed  to  be  criminal;  they  will  tell  you  so  when  you 
gain  their  confidence.  They  are  sinned  against  more 
than  they  are  sinning. 

As  a  class,  our  young  men  are  a  noble-hearted  set 
of  fellows.  They  are  kind  and  polite  and  generous  to  a 
fault.  The  public  is  under  an  immense  indebtedness  to 
them.  W^ith  what  polish  they  wait  on  you  at  the  coun- 
ter, and  the  offices  of  telegraph,  telephone  and  railroad. 
They  answer  your  thousand  questions  without  a  mur- 


58  Dying  at  the  Top, 

mur;  they  wait  till  you  gratify  your  whims,  and  dismiss 
you  with  smiles.  They  give  you  directions  and  carry 
your  packages,  and  help  you  on  and  off  the  cars  as  gen- 
tly and  carefully  as  the  trained  attendants  of  royalty. 

Miss  Jennie  Smith,  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  when  an 
invalid,  traveling  over  the  country  in  her  wheel-cot  found 
railroad  men  so  uniformly  kind  and  gentle  that  she  is 
now  devoting  her  life  to  preaching  Christ  among  them.. 
"  When  an  invalid,  traveling  on  a  wheel-cot,  so  carefully 
cared  for  by  them,  and  finding  how  hungry  they  werr 
for  sympathy  in  their  isolated  position,  cut  off  as  the^ 
were  from  the  means  of  grace,  her  heart  was  drawn  out 
to  them  with  desires  to  help  them  spiritually." 
Yet  these  same  railroad  men  are  tempted  and  exposed 
as  no  set  of  men  ever  were;  they  have  homes,  but 
seldom  see  them;  churches,  but  seldom  are  allowed 
to  enter  them.  Day  and  night  they  are  on  the  road 
in  the  service  of  others,  exposed  to  weather  and 
accident.  Those  whom  they  serve  ride  in  the  trains 
they  guide  and  ^uard,  without  a  word  of  kindness  or 
sympathy  for  these  brave  fellows.  Their  ministrations 
are  given  without  grudge,  and  received  by  the  public 
without  thanks. 

In  the  Railroad  Gazette,  published  in  New  York, 
issue  of  April  26  last,  is  found  this  statement:  "  A  cal- 
culation based  upon  accident  returns  in  the  reports  of 
State  commissioners  indicates  that  every  year  some  two 
thousand  seven  hundred  able-bodied  men  are  killed,  and 
over  twenty  thousand  injured  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties  as  employes  of  the  railroads  of  this  country." 

A  writer  in  the  Messenger  of  Peace,  speaking  con- 
cerning the  railroad  men  of  Iowa,  says  : 

"  Our  commissioner  law  has  been  in  force  for,  ten 
years.  This  law  requires  railroad  companies  to  report 
casualties  of  every  kind  to  the  board.  In  these  ten 
years  there  have  been  killed  and  injured  in  this  state  by 
the  link  and  pin  coupling  and  hand  brake  alone,  two 
thousand  four  hundred  and  twenty-six  strong,  able- 
bodied  men,  and  the  great  majority  of  them  young  men. 


Dying  at  the    Top.  59 

"When  these  reports  from  the  railroads  commenced 
we  had  about  four  thousand  miles  of  road  ;  we  now  have 
a  little  over  eight  thousand.  The  report  of  the  commis- 
sioners for  1888  shows  three  hundred  and  fifty-two  killed 
and  injured  by  these  two  causes  alone  in  this  state  last 
year. 

"  We  have  in  this  nation  now  rising  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  miles  of  railroad.  If  the  same  death  rate 
and  injury  hold  all  over  the  nation  as  in  Iowa  (and  we 
have  reason  to  believe  it  is  greater)  there  are  not  less  than 
six  thousand  six  hundred  of  these  young  men  ground  to 
death  under  the  cruel  iron  wheels,  or  caught  between  the 
cars  and  more  or  less  crippled  for  life  each  year  in  this 
country. 

"This  is  indeed  a  fearful  statement,  and  one  the  gen- 
eral public  will  be  slow  to  believe  just  because  of  its 
awfulness.  Nevertheless  it  is  too  awfully  true.  I  am 
under  rather  than  over  the  true  facts.  Railroad  experts 
tell  me  I  should  make  my  calculations  on  the  number  of 
engines  in  use,  rather  than  on  the  miles  of  road  in  the 
state.  There  is  good  reason  for  this.  Then  again  Iowa 
is  a  temperance  state.  Her  railroad  men  are  almost  uni- 
versally temperance  men.  Our  trains  are  handled  by 
sober  men,  but  be  that  as  it  may,  here  are  the  astounding 
facts :  Three  hundred  and  fifty-two  either  killed  or 
injured  in  the  state  of  Iowa  last  year  and  on  this  most 
favorable  calculation,  six  thousand  six  hundred  in  this 
nation  by  these  two  causes  alone." 

How  can  one  read  and  reflect  on  these  facts  without 
feeling  that  here  is  a  body  of  brave,  knightly  gentlemen 
who  deserve  our  sympathies  and  ministrations. 

When  men  of  such  material  are  found,  out  of  the 
religious  life,  and  often  in  ways  of  sin,  one  cannot  but  say 
to  himself:  Something  is  wrong.  These  erring  men  were 
not  born  just  as  they  are.  They  are  a  result.  If  a  tree 
withers  before  its  time,  injury  has  been  done  in  some 
way.  The  law  of  cause  and  effect  holds  its  place  as  truly 
in  the  realm  of  human  thought  and  human  conduct  as  it 
does  in  the  material  world.     Remove  the  causes  of  vice. 


60  Dying  at  the   Top, 

and  vicious  characters  will  disappear,  as  readily  as  will 
fevers  and  pests  when  sanitary  measures  become  com- 
plete. Says  Dr.  Maudsley :  "  It  is  certain  that  lunatics 
and  criminals  are  as  much  manufactured  articles  as  are 
steam-engines  or  calico-printing  presses,  only  the  process 
of  organic  manufacture  is  complex." 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  study  this 
■*' process  of  organic  manufacture,"  whereby  our  young 
men  are  turned  away  from  the  church  into  lives  irrelig- 
ious and  often  criminal. 

The  first  step  claiming  our  notice,  is  undoubtedly 

HEREDITY. 

A  few  months  ago,  in  one  of  our  American  cities,  there 
was  executed  a  young  man  of  twenty-five  years  of  age. 
He  had  taken  the  life  of  a  companion,  in  cold  blood,  and 
in  his  right  mind.  He  did  not  deny  his  crime  nor 
attempt  a  defense.  He  passed  through  his  brief  trial 
with  perfect  stolidity.  He  sang,  chatted,  told  jokes, 
ate  and  slept  as  though  he  were  as  happy  as  any  man 
alive.  The  announcement  of  his  conviction  and  his 
sentence  was  received  without  the  tremor  of  a  nerve.  At 
the  execution,  he  examined  the  scaffold  and  the  rope  as 
coolly  as  if  they  had  been  a  work  of  art.  At  his  request, 
he  put  the  noose  round  his  own  neck,  adjusted  it,  and 
gave  direction  for  them  to  spring  the  trap.  When  he 
was  dead,  the  general  verdict  of  society  was — "  He  was 
a  brute,  and  hanging  was  too  good  for  him."  For  my 
purpose  I  will  call  him  Gracey,  and  ask  —  Who  and 
what  made  him  a  brute? 

People  of  true  and  solid  culture  will  not  find  fault 
when  I  say  that  Gracey  began  his  earth-life  in  the  body 
of  his  father,  where  that  strange  brain  power — whose 
mystery  no  man  can  fathom — determined  that  the  germ 
should  be  human  and  not  something  else. 

The  father  was  not  a  criminal,  but  he  was  a  bad 
man  none  the  less.  He  had  come  from  a  long  line  of  low- 
lived ancestry,  and  never  had  an  opportunity  to  be  any 


Dying  at  the   Top,  61 

different  from  his  parents.  All  his  constitutional  instincts 
and  propensities  were  of  the  flesh.  Alcohol  and  licen- 
tiousness had  made  him  a  victim  of  passion.  On  the 
germ-life  within  him,  he  stamped  his  character  as 
distinctly  as  he  ever  had  stamped  the  outlines  of  his 
face  in  his  photograph. 

The  mother  had  been  a  well-meaninc^  girl,  and  had 
worked  honestly  for  her  living  till  Gracey's  father  had 
first  ruined  and  then  married  her.  Their  wedlock 
became  a  licensed  indulgence,  and  the  mother,  in  time 
and  by  harsh  treatment,  grew  as  hardened  and  debased 
as  the  father.  In  this  mother's  body,  Gracey  lay  for 
months,  isolated  from  all  outside  influences.  The 
mother  poured  her  life-blood  into  his  veins,  and  her 
thoughts  and  propensities  into  his  soul.  Here  was  an 
ill-begotten  germ  developing  in  an  ill-constructed  soil. 

When  Gracey  was  born,  he  was  white  because  his 
parents  made  him  white;  he  had  human  hands  and  eyes 
and  feet,  for  his  parents  had  them  before  him,  and  he 
had  their  characters — their  tastes  and  passions — folded 
up  in  his  baby  heart,  ready  to  spring  into  life  in  the 
coming  development.  Parentage  settled  the  direction 
of  Gracey's  career.  Does  any  one  doubt  it?  This  is 
Heredity,  doubtless  over-estimated  by  some,  but  vastly 
under-estimated  by  most. 

It  is  not  true  that  birth  Jixes  character  and  destiny. 
Character,  in  this  world,  is  seldom  ever  absolutely  so 
fixed  that  it  may  not  be  revolutionized. 

Some  Catholic  Archbishop  is  credited  with  a  very 
foolish  remark:  *' Give  me  the  children  of  the  land  till 
they  are  five  years  of  age,  and  Protestants  may  have 
them  ever  after."  The  idea  is  that  by  five  years  of  age 
he  could  so  fix  their  characters  that  they  would  ever 
after  be  Catholics  at  heart.  But  any  child  can  be 
revolutionized  after  childhood  or  in  manhood.  You 
may  make  a  civilized  man  out  of  the  child  of  an  Indian; 
a  Christian  out  of  the  son  of  an  idolatrous  Hottentot. 
The  transformation  made  by  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  such   men   as   John   B.  Gough,  Jerry  McCauley,  and 


62  Dying  at  the   Top. 

Dick  Weaver,  of  the  cock-pits  of  London,  are  a  standings 
evidence  that  character  is  never  absolutely  fixed. 

It  is  not  claimed  here  that  Heredity ^jtv^y  character, 
only  that  it  gives  a  marked  and  decided  trend  to  it;  so 
much  so  that  any  system  of  philanthropy  that  does  not 
take  it  into  account  can  never  redeem  the  world  from  vice. 
It  was  a  fundamental  law  of  the  creation  that  every 
creature  was  to  "bring  forth  of  its  kind."  To  this  law 
we  owe  diversities  that  always  have  existed  and  always 
will  exist.  It  is  a  law  that  is  sovereign  in  the  spirit  as  well 
as  in  matter.  It  is  as  impossible  fqr  a  child  begotten  of 
lustful  and  vicious  parents  to  begin  its  life  unbiased 
from  lust  and  vice,  as  for  a  serpent's  egg  to  bring  forth 
an  eagle.  The  fact  that  many  a  child  of  a  low-lived 
parentage  develops  early  into  ways  of  purity  and 
Christian  devotion,  only  proves  that  God  has  placed  in 
our  hands  another  law  that  may  overcome  that  of 
heredity — the  law  of  Environment. 

The  following  statement  was  made  some  time  since 
in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  in  illustration  of  the 
"Inheritance  of  Deformities":  "One  of  the  most 
singular  of  these  is  the  case  of  Edward  Lambert,  whose 
whole  body,  except  the  face,  the  palms  of  the  hands 
and  the  soles  of  the  feet,  was  covered  with  a  sort  of 
shell,  consisting  of  horny  excrescences.  He  was  the 
father  of  six  children,  all  of  whom  presented  the  same 
anomaly  at  the  age  of  six  weeks.  The  only  one  of 
them  who  lived,  transmitted  the  peculiarity  to  all  of  his 
sons,  and  this  transmission,  passing  from  male  to  rnale, 
persisted  through  five  generations." 

Junius  Henri  Brown  states  his  belief  in  heredity  thus : 
"What  the  Rothschilds  have  been,  they  are  still  —  men 
possessed  of  rare  genius  for  pecuniary  planning,  and  for 
bearing  the  largest  and  most  difficult  enterprises  to  suc- 
cessful issues.  They  transmit  the  properties,  material 
and  mental,  which  they  have  inherited.  Their  blood 
flows  in  kindred  channels,  generation  after  generation, 
and  every  drop  of  it  dances  to  the  jingle  of  coin.  From 
foundation  to  turret  they  are  built  up  and  bulwarked 


Dying  at  the   Top,  63 

with  cash.  In  due  process  of  development,  the  future 
Rothschilds  may  become  sacks  of  shining  sovereigns." 

To  anyone  desiring  to  look  more  minutely  into  he- 
redity as  it  bears  on  vice  and  crime,  let  me  commend  a 
work  published  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York, 
entitled  "The  Jukes."  It  was  written  by  R.  L.  Dugdale, 
and  is  an  honest  attempt  of  the  author  to  reveal  to  soci- 
ety a  source  of  criminality  that  even  philanthropy  has 
ignored.  In  this  work  we  find  that  in  seven  generations 
a  single  abandoned  home  bequeathed  to  the  world  twelve 
hundred  descendants,  a  large  majority  of  whom  were 
idiots,  imbeciles,  drunkards,  lunatics,  paupers,  prostitutes 
and  criminals.  Seven  hundred  and  nine  of  the  twelve 
hundred  have  been  registered,  and  their  history  studied 
in  Mr.  Dugdale's  work.  He  finds  that,  while  harlotry  in 
the  community  at  large  averages  nearly  two  out  of  every 
hundred  women,  it  was  over  twenty-nine  times  more  fre- 
quent among  the  Juke  women.  In  the  line  of  Ada  Juke, 
better  known  as  "  Margaret,  the  Mother  of  Criminals,"  it 
was  found  that  crime  among  the  men  was  thirty  times 
greater  than  that  in  the  community  in  general.  Of  the 
five  hundred  and  thirty-five  children  born,  nearly  twenty- 
four  per  cent,  were  illegitimate.  Among  the  women  of 
this  Juke  family,  the  number  of  paupers  was  seven  and  a 
half  times,  and  among  the  men  nine  times,  greater  than 
in  the  community  at  large.  Among  the  sick  and  disabled 
of  both  sexes,  nearly  fifty-seven  per  cent,  were  paupers,  one 
man,  "  through  hereditary  blindness,  costing  the  town 
twenty-three  years  of  out-door  relief  for  two  people,  and  a 
town-burial." 

Summing  up  the  crimes  and  pauperism  of  this  single 
family,  Mr.  Dugdale  estimates  that  in  seventy-five  years 
it  cost  the  public  over  one  million  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  "  without  reckoning  the  cash  paid  for 
whisky,  or  taking  into  account  the  entailment  of  pau- 
perism and  crime  of  the  survivors  in  succeeding  genera- 
tions, and  the  incurable  disease,  idiocy  and  insanity 
growing  out  of  this  debauchery,  and  reaching  farther 
than  we  can  calculate." 


64  Dying  at  the  Top, 

HOME. 

Our  little  hero  came  into  the  world  under  an 
unlucky  star.  Neither  father  nor  mother  hailed  his 
presence.  He  was  received  and  treated  as  an  intruder. 
The  vengeance  of  an  angry  parentage  fell  on  his  head. 
The  mother  wished  him  dead,  and  did  everything,  by 
exposure  and  neglect,  to  kill  him.  But  he  was  destined 
to  live  and  suffer,  and  to  make  others  suffer  like  himself. 
In  his  home  life,  extending  to  his  twelfth  year,  Gracey 
saw  nothing  but  confusion  and  violence;  and  heard 
nothing  except  what  tended  to  change  his  heart  into 
stone.  He  was  turned  out  of  doors  in  the  cold ;  shut  up 
in  dark  closets  as  a  punishment;  locked  in  the  house 
and  left  alone  for  hours.  He  was  kicked  and  beaten  by 
a  drunken  father  and  angry  mother,  till  he  was  compelled, 
like  a  savage,  to  turn  on  them  with  whatever  weapons 
came  to  his  hand.  He  learned  to  lie  as  his  only  success- 
ful weapon  of  defense;  and  to  steal  as,  at  times,  his  only 
means  of  support.  His  face  bore  the  marks  of  perverted 
passion,  and  his  soul  was  rank  with  those  appetites  that 
lay  dormant  in  his  birth.  He  grew  shy  and  fearful,  and 
looked  on  every  human  being  as  his  foe.  His  only  com- 
panionship was  Avith  the  boys  of  the  street  whose  lives 
were  as  bitter  as  his  own,  and  together  the  only  congen- 
ial pastime  they  found  was  in  doing  what  aggravated 
and  tormented  others.  Here  was  the  childhood  of  what 
society  afterwards  calls  "a  brute,"  and  yet  not  at  a 
single  point  was  he  responsible. 

It  is  the  story  of  the  home  life  of  thousands  of  boys. 
The  majority  of  our  desperate  and  hardened  criminals 
sprung  from  just  such  conditions.  In  the  New  York 
State  Reformatory,  at  Elmira,  record  is  made  of  the 
parentage  and  home  surroundings  of  the  inmates.  Of 
three  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-four,  only  two 
hundred  and  eighty  came  from  good  homes,  while  all  ot 
the  balance  sprang  from  homes  indifferent  or  "  positively 
bad."  These  records  show  also  that  the  smallest  per 
cent,  of  the  inmates  are  set  down  as  having  "  left  home 


Dying  at  the    Top.  65 

previous  to  ten  years  of  age " —  only  five  in  one  hundred' 
while  fifty  per  cent,  were  from  those  who  were  "  at  home 
up  to  the  time  of  crime  " —  showing  that  a  child's  chances 
are  increased  for  a  law-abiding  life  by  being  taken  away 
from  bad  home  surroundings.  The  only  remedy  for 
these  vicious  households  is  in  that  slow  change  that 
takes  place  in  the  revolution  of  character.  Until  that  is 
secured  the  number  of  criminals  whom  others  force  into 
crime  will  keep  up.  Mr.  Dugdale  expresses  himself  on 
the  prominence  of  the  home  influence  in  these  words: 

"  The  family  is  the  fundamental  type  of  social  organ- 
ization, and  as  we  found  it  was  necessary  to  take  the 
family  in  its  successive  generations  as  the  proper  basis 
for  a  study  of  our  subject,  so  have  we  found,  in  those 
cases  where  the  established  order  of  society  has  sponta- 
neously produced  amended  lives,  that  the  family  hearth 
has  formed  an  essential  point  of  departure." 

It  is  not  among  the  vicious  classes  alone  that  home 
delinquencies  have  proved  ruinous  to  boyhood  and  early 
manhood.  Many  Christian  parents  mourn  the  lapsing 
of  their  children  from  purity  and  uprightness,  little 
dreaming  that  their  own  omissions  are  the  responsible 
agents.  Boys,  especially,  come  in  contact  with  an  im- 
pure world  early  in  life.  They  are  thrown  into  its  at- 
mosphere in  their  early  associations  and  at  the  public 
schools.  Secret  habits  are  taught  them,  that  from  the 
very  beginning  give  their  lives  a  trend  toward  what  the 
Scriptures  call  the  "flesh."  In  these  secret  indulgences, 
or  rather  abuses,  is  laid  the  ^gg  that  hatches  out  the 
criminal,  and  produces  a  manhood  in  which  all  spiritual- 
ity seems  lost.  The  Master  never  uttered  a  truer  word 
than  when  He  said,  "  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for 
they  shall  see  God."  Thousands  of  our  young  men  and 
boys  are  not  pure  in  heart.  Their  personal  vices  have 
made  them  gross  and  vulgar  in  thought,  and  sermons 
calling  to  a  holy  life  leave  no  more  impression  on  them 
than  on  the  cattle  in  the  field.  Boys  enter  into  these 
secret  sins  without  knowing  the  wrong  and  danger  of 
them.     They  are  taught  them  by  their  playmates,  whom 


66  Dying  at  the  Top, 

they  have  not  suspected  of  a  design  of  injuring  them, 
and  they  often  never  learn  the  blighting  influence  of  them 
till,  later  in  life,  they  find  themselves  the  victims  of  a 
terrible  vice.  These  boys  have  parents  whom  God  gave 
them  to  shield  them  and  rescue  them  from  these  begin- 
nings of  a  low  and  sinful  life,  but  who,  from  sheer  reck- 
lessness or  from  a  false  sensitiveness,  have  left  their 
children  to  learn  of  secret  practices,  not  from  those  who 
would  warn  them  against  them,  but  from  those  who 
would  teach  them  to  practice  them. 

A  factor  in  childhood  that  parents  seldom  take  into 
account,  is  found  in  the  sexual  instincts.  These  are 
born  in  us,  and  belong  to  the  Creator's  plan  in  our  forma- 
tion. By  His  own  provisions  these  instincts  are  made 
to  develop  early.  Of  all  on  the  physical  side  of  life,  they 
are  the  most  productive  of  good  if  they  are  guarded  and 
controlled;  but  the  most  productive  of  evil  if  they  are 
left  alone.  The  average  parent  tries  to  conceal  from 
himself  and  his  child  the  existence  of  this  sexual  nature. 
The  very  terms  by  which  its  existence  is  designated  are 
offensive  to  him.  In  his  excessive  modesty,  this  marvel- 
ous element  in  his  child's  nature  never  enters  into  his 
confidences  and  confidential  counsels,  and  the  child,  with 
the  possibilities  of  the  second  death  in  his  body,  is  sent 
into  the  streets  to  learn  the  stuff  of  which  he  is  made — 
and  his  parents  go  to  their  closets  to  mourn  over  their 
lost  boy,  and  to  wonder  why  their  covenanted  God  will 
allow  their  child  to  be  lost.  It  is  not  only  on  his 
physical  side  that  a  boy  is  neglected,  even  in  church 
homes,  but  on  his  religious  side;  and  in  this  lies  one 
reason  that  so  many  of  our  ybung  men  seem  to  be 
wholly  without  serious  religious  convictions.  It  is  a 
lesson  Christian  parents  have  yet  to  learn,  that  a  Chris- 
tian character  is  of  slow  growth,  and  comes  like  the 
growth  of  a  tree,  by  silent  but  constant  accretion.  "Ask- 
ing the  Blessing"  at  the  table  three  times  a  day;  the 
singino^  of  religious  sonofs  round  the  piano  in  the  even- 
ings; the  reading  of  Scripture,  and  the  offering  of  a 
prayer  at  the  family  altar  twice  every  day,  may  appear 


Dying  at   the   Top.  67 

trivial  matters,  but  they  make  the  atmosphere  of  home 
"arehgious  atmosphere;  and  children,  br-^athing  it  con- 
stantly, are  unconsciously  transformed    into    religious 
,  V      characters. 

^   f  It  is  by  keeping  their  children  in  daily  contact  with 

'  /%  church  forms,  that  Catholic  priests  do  so  much  in  the 
^  way  of  fixing  their  destiny  for  life.  After  their  confir- 
mation at  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age,  these  children 
may  be  turned  loose  into  the  world,  but  they  go  with  a 
bias  to  Rome  that  dies  wholly  in  but  few,  even  of  those 
who  profess  to  be  converted  to  Protestantism.  As 
Protestantism  has  no  priests,  it  is  the  parents  of  its 
homes  that  should  give  cast  to  their  children's  lives  by  a 
constant  home  devotion.  But  Protestant  parents  do 
not  do  it.  Family  worship  is  rapidly  becoming  a  "Lost 
Art"  in  Protestant  church  households.  The  vast  major- 
ity of  them  do  no  more  than  occasionally  "  say  grace  at 
the  table,"  and  thousands  of  them  do  not  even  do  that. 
In  a  Presbyterian  church  which  I  served  as  pastor, 
finding  that  many  of  the  young  people  who  united  with 
the  church  had  no  conscientious  convictions  in  the 
matter  of  secret,  and  home,  and  public  prayer,  I  felt  that 
the  reason  of  it  must  lie  in  the  devotionless  homes  of 
the  church.  Taking  a  census  of  the  congregation,  I 
found  but  ten  family  altars  among  one  hundred  and 
twenty  families.  A  Presbyterian  pastor  of  more  than 
thirty  years'  service  in  a  single  congregation,  when  asked 
how  many  of  his  families  had  family  worship,  replied, 
**  Oh,  not  one  in  five."  The  Presbyterian  discipline  is 
very  emphatic  in  urging  the  importance  of  home  altars, 
and  pastors,  fifty  years  ago,  made  it  part  of  their  pastoral 
work  to  see  that  young  married  couples  would  begin 
their  family  life  by  reading  and  praying  together;  but  of 
late  years  the  matter  has  received  less  and  less  attention, 
until  now,  in  hundreds  of  Presbyterian  pulpits  even,  it 
is  seldom  mentioned.  By  consulting  Moore's  Digest, 
one  can  find  scores  of  pages  taken  up  in  deliverances  of 
the  General  Assembly  on  disputed  doctrines,  and  in 
cases  of  discipline;  but  for  eighty  years  there  has  not 


68  Dying  at  the  Top, 

been  a  single  new,  fresh,  ringing  deliverance  on  the 
subject  of  worship  in  Presbyterian  homes.  What  is 
true  of  the  homes  of  the  Presbyterian  church  is  true  in 
a  greater  degree  in  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  Congrega- 
tional and  Episcopal  households — devoutness  of  life  in 
the  matter  of  religious  worship  is  being  turned  over 
more  and  more  to  a  single  day  of  the  week,  and  to  the 
brief  services  of  the  sanctuary  and  Sabbath  school. 
According  to  the  New  York  Independent^  the  church 
population  of  this  country  is  now  nineteen  millions. 
From  the  United  States  census  of  1880,  we  find  that 
there  is  about  one  family  for  every  five  of  our  popula- 
tion. This  would  give  us  for  the  country  nearly  four 
millions  of  church  homes.  Out  of  these  homes  there 
go  every  year  into  the  world  more  than  one  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  young  men  who  have  reached 
twenty-one  years  of  age.  Allowing  the  high  average 
of  one  family  altar  to  eight  church  homes,  and  we  have 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  young  men,  whom  the 
church  ought  to  have  in  her  active  work,  sent  into  the 
world  without  having  ever  been  brought  into  contact 
with  Christian  devotion  in  the  so-called  religious  homes 
from  which  they  have  come.  Such  a  condition  of  things 
is  simply  shameful,  when  we  consider  the  character  of 
the  world  into  which  our  sons  must  go  when  they  leave 
home.  The  ancient  Jew  had  better  opportunities  for 
religious  impressions.  The  two  great  principles  on  which 
the  Hebrews  were  redeemed  from  their  corrupt  condition 
on  leaving  Egypt  were,  isolation  from  surrounding 
idolatrous  nations,  and  daily  contact  with  religious  forms. 
Let  any  one  read  carefully  the  old  Mosaic  Ritual  and  he 
will  see  that  the  children  of  Jewish  homes  never  passed 
a  day  without  their  eyes  looking  upon  the  sacrifices  that 
were  offered  before  the  Tabernacle.  Let  the  same  person 
place  the  four  million  church  homes  of  this  country  in  a 
row,  and  pass  first  through  those  that  are  practically 
devotionless,  and  he  will  go  through  three  million  five 
hundred  thousand  before  he  hears  a  single  prayer 
offered  in  a  family  group.     Such  a  condition  of  things  is 


Dying  at  the   Top,  69 

not  even  good  Paganism.  The  old  Romans  had  divin- 
ities called  the  Lares  which  they  worshiped  as  the 
special  providences  that  attended  them  everywhere. 
They  were  their  domestic  gods.  It  was  the  home  hearth 
on  which,  as  an  altar,  sacrifices  were  offered  to  them. 
"  In  all  family  repasts,  the  first  thing  done  was  to  cast  a 
portion  of  the  viands  into  the  fire  that  burned  on  the 
hearth,  in  honor  of  the  Lares.  In  the  form  of  marriage 
the  bride  always  threw  a  piece  of  money  on  the  hearth  to 
the  Lares  of  her  family,  and  deposited  another  in  the 
neighboring  crossroads,  in  order  to  obtain  admission  into 
the  home  of  her  husband.  Young  persons,  after  their 
fifteenth  year,  consecrated  to  the  Lares  the  bulla  which 
they  had  worn  from  infancy.  Soldiers,  when  their  time 
of  service  was  ended,  dedicated  to  these  powerful  genii 
the  arms  with  which  they  had  fought  the  battles  of  their 
country.  Captives  and  slaves  restored  to  freedom, 
consecrated  to  the  Lares  the  fetters  from  which  they  had 
just  been  freed.  Before  undertaking  a  journey  or  after  a 
successful  return,  homage  was  paid  to  these  deities,  their 
protection  was  implored,  or  thanks  were  rendered  for 
their  oruardian  care."  Thus  it  was  that  Roman  youth 
were  molded  by  constant  contact  with  religious  convic- 
tions and  religious  forms.  Yet  tens  of  thousands  of 
Christian  parents  in  this  enlightened  age  expect  their 
children  to  go  into  the  world  with  finished  Christian 
characters,  after  having  spent  their  childhood  and  youth 
with  no  kind  of  home  divinities  or  daily  devotional 
forms. 

A  SECULARIZED   SABBATH. 

The  only  sun-spot  in  Gracey's  life  came  a  few  months 
before  his  tw^elfth  year.  A  lady  for  whom  he  had  run 
errands  persuaded  him  to  join  her  Sabbath-school  class. 
It  was  a  revelation  to  the  boy.  He  found  himself  in  an 
atmosphere  of  kindness,  and  for  the  first  time  m  his  life 
gentle  words  were  spoken  to  him.  The  sunshine  fell 
into  and  bes^an  to  warm  his  heart.  In  a  few  weeks  the 
face  did  not  look  so  harsh,  nor  the  voice  sound  so  rough. 


70  Dying  at  the  Top, 

Higher  spirits  were  at  work  in  the  lad.  It  was  the  one 
chance  in  his  life.  He  was  slowly  yet  probably  surely 
turning  to  the  light  like  the  vine  that  has  sprouted  and 
groped  in  the  darkness.  But  the  sun-spot  was  lost  and 
with  it  went  hope.  Gracey  found  a  place  as  chore  boy  at 
the  depot  of  his  native  place,  where  he  ate  and  slept  and 
lived.  The  Sabbath  was  his  busiest  day,  for  it  was  then 
the  "cleaning  up"  was  done.  With  the  busy  Sabbath 
went  the  Sunday  school,  and  the  transforming  angels 
that  would  have  redeemed  this  unfortunate  child.  From 
the  depot  Gracey  passed  in  time  to  the  position  of  brake- 
man  on  a  freight  train,  where  he  remained  toiling  seven 
days  in  every  week  till  he  committed  his  first  crime 
against  the  civil  law. 

I  wonder  if  the  busy  people  of  this  world  ever  dream 
that  a  multitude  are  losing  Hope  through  a  broken  Sab- 
bath. Men  may  differ  as  to  the  Divine  authority  of  the 
fourth  commandment,  and  with  reference  to  the  right  of 
the  state  to  enforce  its  observance;  but  they  cannot  dis- 
agree as  to  the  demoralizing  influence  of  compelling  seven 
days  of  toil  out  of  every  week.  Nature  herself  demands 
the  rest  of  the  night  and  of  one  day  in  seven.  It  is  a 
physiological  fact  that  when  a  man's  body  is  kept  con- 
stantly weary  from  unbroken  toil,  all  the  reviving  ener- 
gies of  his  nature  are  thrown  into  the  nerves  and  muscles 
to  sustain  physical  exhaustion.  He  is  compelled  to  live 
simply  a  bodily  life.  The  brain  has  no  surplus  blood  for 
thought,  hence,  as  an  organ  of  reflection,  it  shrivels.  Why 
is  it  that  a  tired  man  when  he  sits  down  at  night  after  a 
day  of  iiard  service,  cannot  read,  but  falls  asleep  over  his 
book?  It  is  an  exhausted  body  saying  to  the  mind,  I 
have  no  strength  left  for  you  to  do  your  work;  I  must 
have  sleep.  Thus  the  mind  is  crowded  out  and  the  whole 
man  is  materialized.  This  is  true,  not  only  of  manual 
labor,  but  of  unbroken  toil  of  any  kind.  The  clerk  whose 
whole  time  for  seven  days  in  every  week  is  spent  in  sell- 
ing goods  over  the  counter;  the  accountant  who  never 
leaves  his  books  but  to  lie  down  late  at  night  to  sleep; 
the  operator  who  hears  nothing  the  year  round  but  the 


Dying  at  the   Top,  71 

click  of  his  instrument;  the  agent  who  knows  nothing 
but  to  hand  out  the  ticket  and  take  in  the  price  of  it  — 
all  of  them  are  in  a  tread-mill  —  that  by  its  constant 
wear  and  tear  is  shortening^  their  lives,  and  what  is  far 
worse,  taking  from  them  the  time  and  restfulness  they 
must  have  for  the  cultivation  of  their  higher  powers.  The 
world  is  only  beginning  to  see  that  the  fourth  command- 
ment is  founded  on  natural  law  as  really  as  is  digestion 
or  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  It  says  to  every  man, 
"You  must  rest  one  day  in  seven  from  your  accustomed 
toil,  or  in  your  intellectual,  domestic  and  religious,  as  well 
as  in  your  physical  interests,  you  must  die." 

Now,  one  of  the  appalling  facts  of  our  times  is,  that 
the  only  day  in  the  week  that  God  has  designated  for 
man's  rest  is  being  taken  from  us  and  forced  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  world.  Our  railroads,  manufactories,  tele- 
graphs, street  car  and  express  companies,  and  many  of 
our  business  establishments  in  all  our  cities,  are  compel- 
ling their  employes  to  devote  their  entire  seven  days  to 
their  secular  service.  Christian  people  themselves  are 
required  to  give  up  their  only  sacred  day  from  their  fam- 
ilies and  church  devotions,  or  lose  their  places. 

This  secularizing  of  the  Sabbath  is  telling  most  dis- 
astrously on  our  young  men.  They  make  up  fully  sixty 
per  cent,  of  the  employes  on  our  railroads,  and  constitute 
the  majority  of  all  who  live  in  the  service  of  others.  Their 
waking  hours  are  all  spent  away  from  home  influence, 
and  the  church  has  no  opportunity  to  reach  them  with 
its  regenerating  agencies.  Hence  they  are,  from  a  social 
and  religious  standpoint,  degenerating.  They  must  degen- 
erate until  they  are  allowed  proper  rest  from  their 
exhausting  toil. 

A  young  man  recently  attended  the  evening  service 
in  the  church  of  which  I  am  pastor,  and  went  to  sleep. 
Afterward  he  apologized  to  a  lady  who  shook  hands 
with  him,  saying,  "I  could  not  help  it;  I  was  on  the 
road  all  last  night."  And  who  could  blame  him  ?  Two 
millions  of  young  men  in  this  country  are  out  "on  the 
road,"  in  every-day  service  and   almost  all-night  service, 


72  Dying  at  the  Top, 

for  men  and  for  companies  who  work  them  like  cattle. 
As  a  class,  they  are  fearfully  sinned  against,  and  the 
blood  of  their  loss  will  be  demanded  by  a  just  God  of 
those  modern  Pharaohs  who  force  them  into  a  bondage 
little  less  exacting  than  that  required  of  the  Hebrews  in 

'■'' Remember  the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  tt  holy.  Six 
days  shalt  thou  lalor,  and  do  all  thy  work.  But  the 
seventh  day  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God :  in  it 
thou  shalt  not  do  any  work,  thou  7ior  thy  so7i,  nor  thy 
daughter y  nor  .thy  manservant ,  nor  thy  tnaidservant,  nor 
thy  cattle,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is  witkiii  thy  gates: 
For  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea^ 
and  all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh  day : 
wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sabbath  day,  and  hal^ 
lowed  it'' 

THE  SALOON. 

Gracey  took  his  first  lesson  in  saloon  life  in  his 
father's  home,  before  he  was  seven  years  of  age.  Fre- 
quently he  was  sent  with  the  bucket  for  beer,  when  he 
thought  it  not  wrong  to  help  himself.  The  first  money 
he  earned  was  spent  in  the  saloon.  On  one  occasion, 
having  taken  more  than  his  head  could  stand,  the  saloon- 
keeper made  a  bed  of  his  coat  under  the  counter,  where 
the  child  lay  till  he  "  slept  off  his  drunk." 

When  he  began  life  on  his  own  account,  he  had  his 
evenings,  as  a  usual  thing,  to  himself.  Where  should 
he  spend  his  leisure  hours  but  at  the  saloon  ?  Here 
were  his  companions.  The  room  was  bright  and  cheer- 
ful, and  everybody  was  made  welcome.  A  violin  and 
piano  helped  to  entertain  all  the  comers.  There  was  the 
daily  newspaper  on  a  rack  by  the  fire,  and  here  were 
games  under  the  gas-light.  No  other  place  in  the  city 
was  open  for  him — not  a  spot  where  he  could  feel  free  to 
spend  an  hour.  The  churches  were  open  but  one  day 
in  the  week,  and  the  homes  were  all  closed  to  him.  Of 
course  he  went  to  the  saloon.  Why  should  he  not  go? 
No  one  had  ever  taught  him  that  there  was  any  wrong 
in  so  doing. 


Dying  at  the  Top.  73 

Who  can  deny  that  the  saloon  has  come  in  to 
meet  a  want  ?  Young  men  without  homes  and  young 
men  with  bad  homes  need  a  place  of  resort.  Christian 
people  were  too  slow  in  providing  that  resort,  and  the 
devil  stepped  in  to  meet  the  demand.  "Will  you  walk 
into  my  parlor?"  he  said  from  his  brilliantly  lighted 
dens,  and  the  young  men  v/alked  in  and  were  lost. 

In  the  saloon  Gracey  drank  what  fired  his  blood 
and  unsettled  his  brain;  he  heard  the  jokes  and  stories 
of  the  low  and  vile;  he  saw  pictures  that  were  lewd;  and 
read  the  books  and  p'apers  of  the  obscene  and  the  anarch- 
ist. And  here  it  was  he  learned  to  be  lewd  and 
licentious;  for  the  saloon  had  its  second  story,  where  the 
lust  of  the  fallen  heart  was  fully  gratified.  So  go  thou- 
sands like  Gracey,  who  do  not  mean  to  be  lost,  but  are 
carried  on  by  companionship  and  appetite  till  they  enter 
the  rapids,  when  all  power  of  self-control  is  lost,  and  then 
comes  the  precipice. 

Without  considering"  the  saloon  in  connection  with 
American  politics,  its  social  influence  is  enough  to  con- 
demn it  forever.  Saloon-keepers  are  not  all  bad  men. 
Some  of  them  are,  in  their  German  circles,  men  of  stand- 
ing and  influence,  and  their  saloons  are  quiet  and  orderly 
hke  themselves.  They  come  to  this  country  from  Ger- 
many, where  their  business  was  respectable,  and  they 
have  endeavored  to  keep  it  respectable  here.  I  know 
some  of  these  saloon-keepers  who  have  raised  families  of 
sober  and  upright  boys.  But  this  better  class  is  grow- 
ing smaller  and  smaller. 

As  a  class,  saloon- keepers  in  our  countiy  are  of  the 
lowest  characters.  They  are  impure,  profane,  irreligious, 
vulgar  and  often  criminal ;  and  their  saloons  are  like  them- 
selves. In  no  place,  as  here — outsiHe  of  the  bagnio — is 
the  atmosphere  so  saturated  with  all  that  is  vicious  and 
corrupting.  Here  one  meets  with  the  world's  filthiest 
characters,  filthiest  pictures,  and  filthiest  conversation, 
because  here  congregate  society's  filthiest  souls.  The 
American  saloon  is  the  rendezvous  of  thieves,  and  cut- 
throats,  and   gamblers.     Bummers,  tramps,  dead-beats, 


74  Dying  at  the  Top, 

throng  around  them  as  flies  around  the  paper  prepared 
for  their  destruction.  Here  it  is,  are  planned  our  prize- 
fights. Here  come  the  distributers  of  obscene  literature 
to  ply  their  wretched  traffic;  here  come  the  "boodlers" 
to  arrange  for  the  corruption  of  our  elections — here,  in 
these  "Pest-Holes "  of  Infamy.  Yet  it  is  a  lamentable 
fact  that  the  principal  patrons  of  the  saloon  are  young 
men.  Into  a  single  saloon  in  Cincinnati,  passed  two 
hundred  and  fifty-two  men  within  an  hour — two  hundred 
and  thirty-six  of  whom  were  young  men.  In  New 
Albany,  Ind.,  in  one  hour  and  a  half,  on  a  certain  evening,' 
one  thousand  one  hundred  and  nine  persons  entered 
nineteen  of  seventy-six  saloons,  nine  hundred  and  eighty- 
three  of  whom  were  young  men  and  boys.  C.  H. 
Yatman  stood  on  the  streets  of  Newark,  N.  J.,  one  day, 
and  in  five  minutes  counted  sixty-two  young  men  going 
into  one  saloon.  He  passed  his  watch  to  a  friend,  and 
asked  him  to  stand  and  count  for  thirty  minutes.  In 
that  time  five  hundred  and  ninety-two  entered  the  saloon, 
most  of  them  being  young  men.  Yet  this  was  only  one 
of  hundreds  of  saloons  in  that  city.  The  two  following 
are  from  Richard  Morse's  "  Young  Men  of  our  Cities": 
"A  city  of  seventeen  thousand  population,  three  thou- 
sand young  men;  one  thousand  and  twenty-one,  over 
one- fourth,  entered  forty-nine  saloons  in  one -hour  one 
Saturday  night";  "A  city  of  thirty-eight  thousand 
population,  six  thousand  younsf  men ;  on  a  certain 
Saturday  evening  ten  per  cent,  of  them  visited  seven  of 
the  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  saloons." 

In  Milwaukee  on  a  certain  evening,  four  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  persons  entered  a  single  saloon,  nearly  all  of 
whom  were  young  men  and  boys. 

In  Leadville,  Col.,  on  a  certain  Sabbath  evening, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  young  men  attended  the  eight 
Protestant  and  Catholic  churches;  the  same  evenings 
two  thousand  of  the  five  thousand  young  men  entered 
six  of  the  seventy-six  saloons.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  church  reports  of  1886  showed  twenty-five  young 
men  admitted  to  the  communion,  and  that  the  criminal 


Dying  at  the   Top,  75 

reports  showed  one  thousand  and  ninety-seven  arrests. 

The  following  was  clipped   from  the  Nezv  York  Inde- 
pendent  of  April  28,  1887: 

"A  sad  story  comes  from  Indianapolis  of  the  discovery 
there  of  a  gambling  room  for  boys  from  twelve  to  twenty 
years  old.  The  boj's,  employed  as  collectors,  disappeared 
with  funds,  and  this  led  to  a  search,  which  resulted  in 
raiding  a  liquor  saloon  in  a  business  block.  Back  of  the 
bar  was  a  room,  at  the  end  of  which  was  what  appeared 
to  be  a  large  ice-chest,  but  which  was  really  a  door 
leading  to  a  room  in  the  cellar,  lighted  with  gas,  in  which 
were  found  forty  boys,  nearly  all  of  highly  respectable 
families,  gambling  at  poker.  They  were  smoking,  and 
a  number  of  them  gave  signs  that  they  had  been  drink- 
ing. The  police  had  been  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  place." 
The  Providence,  R.  I.,  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  furnishes  the  following: 

On  one  Saturday  evening,  between  the  hours  of 
eight  and  ten  o'clock,  by  actual  count,  there  were  seen 
to  enter  two  saloons  within  two  doors  of  each  other, 
respectively,  twenty-six  and  twenty-eight  young  men  in 
one  hour  and  forty  minutes.  At  another  place,  near  the 
post-office,  during  the  same  time,  sixty-five  young  men 
were  seen  to  enter  a  single  saloon.  Still  another  saloon, 
within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  the  latter,  ninety  young 
men  were  seen  to  enter;  at  a  fifth  saloon,  within  easy 
walking  distance  of  the  largest  number  of  boarding- 
houses  in  the  city,  were  seen  to  enter  within  two  hours, 
one  hundred  and  forty-six  young  men.  While  the  latter 
case  is  probably  an  exceptional  one,  it  is  believed  upon 
good  authority  that  not  less  than  one  hundred  places  are 
now  open  where  an  average  of  not  less  than  fifty-two 
young  men  pass  into  these  saloons  every  Saturday  nighty 
or  an  aggregate  of  over  five  thousand  within  the  two 
hours.  Upon  the  beat  of  a  single  policeman,  eighteen 
places  were  found  where  liquors  were  sold  to  young  men 
over  the  counter. 

Evansville,    Ind.,   has    six  thousand   five   hundred 
.young  men  between    sixteen  and  thirty-five  years  of 


76  Dying  at  the  Top. 

age.  There  are  twenty-six  churches  and  two  hundred 
and  thirty-seven  drinking  places.  By  actual  count,  on 
a  recent  Saturday  evening,  four  hundred  and  fifty-two 
young  men  were  seen  to  enter  four  drinking  places 
between  the  hours  of  nine  and  eleven.  By  actual  count, 
there  were  only  one  hundred  and  forty-six  young  men  in 
four  of  the  representative  Protestant  churches  in  the 
city  the  next  morning. 

Springfield,  Ohio,  judging  by  the  census  of  1880, 
has  at  present  not  less  than  six  thousand  five 
hundred  young  men.  At  my  own  request  statistics 
were  taken  last  February  with  the  following  result :  In 
the  seven  principal  churches  on  a  certain  Sabbath  morn- 
ing were  one  hundred  and  seventy-one  young  men ;  in 
five  of  the  leading  saloons  in  one  hour,  the  evening 
previous  were  six  hundred  young  men.  In  that  city  are 
one  hundred  and  forty-one  saloons. 

In  New  Carlisle,  Pa.,  in  December  last,  one  thousand 
three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  young  men  entered  eleven 
saloons  from  eight  to  eleven  o'clock. 

Mr.  Meigs,  of  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  delivered  a  lecture 
some  time  since  in  Terre  Haute.  Before  his  visit  he  had 
seven  young  men  take  notes  for  him  in  that  city.  The 
result  was  on  a  certain  Saturday  evening,  that  these 
young  men  found  one  thousand  and  forty-five  young  men 
enter  seven  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  saloons;  and  on 
the  following  Sabbath  morning  only  seventy-five  young 
men  in  all  of  the  churches. 

In  Middletown,  Ohio,  there  were  taken  for  me  the 
evening  of  P'eb.  16,  1889,  the  following:  In  one  saloon, 
fifty-seven  young  men  in  a  single  hour;  in  a  second, 
twenty-seven  ;  in  a  third,  forty ;  in  a  fourth,  sixty  —  one 
hundred  and  ei<rhty-four  in  all.  In  the  four  leading 
churches  the  next  morning  there  were  ninety-seven  young 
men  present  at  worship. 

The  following  comes  to  me  from  H.  W.  Kellogg, 
Secretary  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
at  Appleton,  Wis.,  dated  Nov.  5,  1889: 


Dying  at  the   Top.  77- 

"  On  Saturday  evening,  Oct.  26th,  between  seven 
and  ten  o'clock,  there  entered  thirty-four  of  the  fifty 
saloons  of  the  city  (population  twelve  thousand),  seven 
hundred  and  twenty-five  young  men,  two  hundred  and 
forty-five  old  men  and  ten  women  and  girls  —  a  total  of 
nine  hundred  and  eighty.  Men  under  thirty  were  called 
young.  During  the  same  hours  thirty-seven  young  men 
entered  the  rooms  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation. Sunday  morning,  Oct.  27th,  there  were  in  six 
evangelical  churches  two  hundred  and  eight  old  men  and 
one  hundred  and  eighty- four  young  men.  Of  this  one 
hundred  and  eighty-four  nearly  one  hundred  were  stu- 
dents whose  attendance  is  required. 

These  figures  are  not  as  frightful  as  some  in  your 
book,  but  are  bad  enough  for  a  quiet  college  town,  as 
many  think  it.  Very  truly  yours, 

H.  W.  Kellogg. 

E.  F.  Hall,  of  Attleboro,  Mass.,  writes  October  30, 
1889: 

"  While  Assistant  Secretary  at  Lowell,  Mass.,  near- 
ly a  year  ago,  I  visited  nineteen  liquor  shops  and  care- 
fully marked  numbers  and  approximate  ages  from  fifteen 
to  forty  years  old.  I  was  sadly  surprised  to  find  the 
result  as  follows:  Number  of  places  visited,  nineteen; 
number  found  at  each,  smallest,  eight ;  largest,  forty-five; 
average,  fifteen.  Went  to  police  station  and  found  there 
were  four  hundred  saloons  in  the  city.  Multiplying  the 
number  four  hundred  by  average  fifteen,  we  have  six 
thousand  young  men  in  all  these  places  during  two 
hours'  time,  beside  a  large  percentage  going  and  coming. 
The  population  of  Lowell  is  seventy-five  thousand,  mak- 
ing one  in  every  twelve  or  thirteen  inhabitants.  I  can 
hardly  believe  it,  yet  it  is  true.  Pev.  W.  T.  Perrin,  pas- 
tor of  a  Methodist  Episcopal  church,  accompanied  me 
and  stands  a  ready  witness  to  this  sad  statement. 
Could  give  other  experiences,  but  none  more  sad  than 
the  above." 

In  the  Association  Dial  of  Waltham,  Mass.,  of 
October,  appeared  "  An  Eye  Opener,"  which  read  : 


78  Dying  at  the    Top, 

"We  have  become  very  anxious  of  late  to  know 
where  many  of  our  young  men  spend  their  evenings,  and 
that  we  might  get  an  idea  of  the  power  of  the  saloon, 
we  asked  one  of  our  members  to  station  himself  near  the 
door  of  the  saloon  at  the  north  end  of  the  bridge,  past 
which  every  person  crossing  the  river  has  to  go.  By 
actual  count,  written  on  paper,  we  found,  horrible  to  tell, 
that  from  7  to  9  o'clock  on  Saturday  evening,  September 
22,  three  hundred  and  fifteen  men  (most  of  them  young 
men)  entered  the  saloon,  and  in  the  same  time  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-six  came  out. 

"To  show  more  forcibly  just  what  these  numbers 
mean,  we  give  the  total  for  every  fifteen  minutes: 
7.00  to  7.15  o'clock,  twenty-one;  7.15  to  7.30  o'clock, 
twenty-seven;  7.30  to  7.45  o'clock,  thirty-five;  7.45  to 
8.00  o'clock,  forty-one;  8.00  to  8.15  o'clock,  forty-six; 
8.15  to  8.30  o'clock,  forty-nine;  8.30  to  8.45  o'clock,  for- 
ty-seven ;  8.45  to  9.00  o'clock,  forty-nine ;  total  in  two 
hours,  three  hundred  and  fifteen." 

In  the  Presbyterian,  of  Philadelphia,  of  December 
15,  1888,  "Diogenes"  published  an  article  on  "  Wanted, 
a  Young  Man,"  in  which  he  makes  the  statement : 

"  On  a  chief  thoroughfare  of  the  city  I  noticed  a 
palatial  building  into  which  a  constant  stream  of  young 
men  seemed  to  be  passing.  A  gentleman  informed  me 
that,  according  to  a  careful  count,  four  thousand  men 
entered  those  ever-swinging  doors  on  an  ordinary  day 
between  six  in  the  morning  and  ten  at  night.  I  thought 
in  such  a  popular  resort  I  might  find  the  young  man  I 
was  seeking.  Entering,  I  passed  by  the  bar  into  the 
large  room  beyond,  where  were  two  long  rows  of  billiard- 
tables  extending  through  to  the  back  street.  Around 
the  first  table  alone  I  counted  thirty-five  young  men 
watching  the  progress  of  the  game.  They  were  wasting 
their  noon-hour.  When  I  heard  that  it  was  not  an 
unusual  thing  for  merchants  to  walk  through  this  place, 
to  see  whether  any  of  their  employes  were  there,  I  con- 
cluded the  young  man  was  not  there  that  is  'wanted* 
in  business  circles. 


Dying  at  the   Top.  79 

"Joining  some  friends  who  wished  to  see  who  were  to 
be  found  in  the  saloons  about  midnight,  I  made  a  round 
one  night,  and  found  that  most  of  those  we  entered  — 
some  two  hundred  in  all  —  were  occupied  by  young 
men.  But  the  young  man  that  was  'wanted'  did  not 
seem  to  be  among  them." 

From  the  report  of  H.  J.  McCoy — Secretary  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  San  Francisco — 
for  1889,  I  clip  the  following  statement: 

"On  Sunday  evening,  August  19,  1888,  there  were 
by  actual  count  in  all  the  evangelical  churches  of  this 
city  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  ninety-two  young 
men  between  sixteen  and  thirty-five  years  of  age. 

"  On  the  following  Sunday  evening,  August  26th,  the 
principal  theatres,  concert  and  billiard  halls,  and  other 
places  of  amusement, including  saloons,  etc.,  were  counted, 
(one  base-ball  match  at  which  there  were  five  thousand 
young  men),  and  there  were  found  in  these  places  of 
amusement  and  saloons,  including  the.  base-ball  match 
on  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  seventeen  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  thirty-three  young  men.  And  there  were  at 
least  three  thousand  places  of  unhallowed  influences  which 
could  not  be  reached  and  counted  by  our  committee  on 
that  evening,  where  young  men  were  congregated.  Put- 
ting it  at  the  very  lowest  estimate,  we  would  say  on  that 
evening  there  were  on  an  average  five  young  men  visited 
each  of  these  places,  which  gives  us  a  total  of  fifteen 
thousand.  By  these  figures  we  find  that  there  were  at 
the  least  calculation  thirty-two  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  thirty-three  young  men  in  the  theatres,  drinking 
saloons,  and  other  places  of  amusement  on  that  Sunday 
evening.  This  report  is  signed  by  ten  young  men,  repre- 
senting different  denominations. 

"  The  largest  number  of  young  men  found  in  any  one 
church  was  four  hundred  and  eleven;  the  least,  six. 

"The  largest  number  found  in  any  one  theatre  was 
one  thousand  two  hundred,  and  there  were  three  places 
where  there  were  over  one  thousand  in  each  place." 


80  Dying  at  the    Top. 

Much  more  of  this  kind  of  material  lies  before  me, 
but  this  will  certainly  suffice  to  convince  any  reasonable 
mind  that  it  is  the  young  men  who  are  the  principal 
patrons  of  the  saloon.  They  make  up  at  least  seventeen 
out  of  every  twenty.  As  there  are  not  less  than  two 
hundred  thousand  drinking  places  in  this  country,  and  as 
twenty  to  each  saloon  is  not  a  large  annual  allowance 
from  the  ranks  of  our  youth,  I  believe  I  am  not  overstat- 
ing facts  when  I  say  that  the  saloon  system  of  the  United 
States  is  degrading  not  less  than  four  millions  of  young 
men.  What  shall  be  done  with  the  saloon  as  a  place  of 
rendezvous  is  one  of  the  grave  problems  of  the  hour.  To 
the  writer  it  seems  there  is  no  solution  but  utter  exter- 
mination. Any  other  policy  means  the  continuance  of 
the  place  of  resort  and  of  the  sale  of  intoxicants.  Reduc- 
ing the  number  of  saloons  does  not  remove  these  objec- 
tionable features.  Indeed,  what  is  gained  by  diminishing 
the  number  is  more  than  overcome  by  the  concentration 
of  immense  profits  into  a  few  hands,  enabling  them  to 
surround  their  ruinous  traffic  by  the  air  of  respectability 
and  the  attractions  of  art.  Parents  feel  that  if  every 
saloon  were  transformed  into  a  filthy  and  forbidding 
shanty,  the  chances  of  saving  their  boys  from  the  drink 
curse  would  be  immensely  increased. 

THE  BAGNIO. 

This  search  for  the  underlying  influences  that  are 
destroying  our  young  men  and  boys  would  fall  far  short 
of  thoroughness  if  it  overlooked  that  second  story  room 
of  the  saloon. 

Shall  I,  when  I  go  to  a  physician  to  consult  him  with 
reference  to  a  cure,  tell  him  all  the  minor  symptoms  of 
my  disease,  and  conceal  the  real  disease  itself  ?  Many 
do  that  very  foolish  and  reckless  thing,  through  modesty, 
perhaps,  and  as  modesty  does  not  correct  the  trouble, 
they  wither  and  die. 

Gracey  in  that  upper  room  came  under  the  most 
blighting  and  corrupting  spell  of  his  unfortunate  life.  He 


Dying  at  the   Top.  81 

was  just  seventeen  when  he  entered  that  dreadful  door, 
that  was  to  swing  outward  for  him  only  when  what  httle 
manhood  was  left  in  him  was  lost  forever.  Although  he 
had  not,  up  till  his  seventeenth  year,  been  openly  licen- 
tious, yet  his  whole  career  heretofore  had  prepared  him 
for  it,  and  when  the  opportunity  came  he  yielded  to  it  as 
naturally  as  the  rain  drops  fall  to  the  earth.  The  lustful 
impulse  was  in  his  blood;  nothing  had  ever  been  done  to 
restrain  that  impulse  through  an  educated  conscience. 
He  had  lived  among  people  who  had  had  no  higher  life 
than  that  of  the  flesh.  Refined  and  Christian  reader, 
you  would  have  entered  the  same  broad  road  to  death 
that  Gracey  did,  if  you  had  had  no  better  chance  than  he. 

The  fact  is  that  a  multitude  of  young  men,  who  have 
been  better  born  and  bred,  and  who  know  better,  are 
going  into  the  hidden  chamber  of  the  harlot,  and  so  are 
subjecting  themselves  to  a  blight,  alongside  of  which 
intemperance  is  mild  and  gentle. 

Between  the  time  of  his  taking  the  first  glass  till  he 
becomes  a  sot,  the  drinking  man  may  long  retain  many 
of  the  finer  elements  of  his  manhood  —  his  sincere  attach- 
ment for  his  home,  his  self-respect,  his  sensitiveness  of 
conscience  —  but  lust  degrades  its  victim  at  the  very 
start.  It  corrupts  life  at  its  fountain-head.  It  is  the 
canker  of  the  soul,  the  rapid  consumption  of  all  that  is 
distinctively  manly  and  God-like. 

It  is  a  dreadful  comment  on  the  so-called  modesty 
of  the  Christian  world,  that  its  magazines,  newspapers, 
and  pulpits  have  been  almost  wholly  silent  on  the  so- 
called  social  vices.  Hush  !  hush!  the  refined  have  cried 
at  everypublic  reference  to  them,  till  licentiousness  has 
well-nigh  undermined  our  social  fabric.  Its  prevalence 
is  truly  appalling.  The  better  classes  have  been  ignorant 
of  it,  because  it  is  a  malady  that  moves  in  silence,  and 
preys  on  its  victims  in  the  night-time  and  in  concealment. 
It  has  no  plain  advertisements  in  the  newspapers ;  pastes 
up  no  flaming  posters ;  glows  with  no  electric  lights;  is 
surrounded  by  no  bands  of  music.  It  is  this  secrecy  that 
leaves  so  many  parents  and  reformers  in  ignorance,  and, 


82  Dying  at  the   Top. 

when  the  thin  veil  is  lifted,  makes  them  incredulous  of 
what  is  revealed. 

It  is  no  intention  of  the  writer  to  create  unnecessary 
alarm  in  what  follows.  He  is  perfectly  aware  that  many 
who  are  evil  themselves,  are  prone  to  magnify  the  errors 
of  others  in  order  to  excuse  themselves ;  so  is  he  aware 
of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  large  class  of  so-called  phy- 
sicians who,  in  order  to  sell  their  remedies,  would  make 
us  believe  that  all  of  society  is  corrupt.  There  is  no 
occasion  for  universal  suspicion.  Young  women  need 
not  feel  that  every  young  man  who  approaches  them  is 
unclean.  It  is  not  true  that  all  the  diseases  flesh  is  heir 
to  are  the  result  of  lustful  habits.  Still,  the  social  vices 
are  fearfully  prevalent.  If  one-half  of  what  the  witnesses 
state  is  true,  the  alarm  should  be  sounded,  and  immedi- 
ate steps  be  taken  to  check  the  progress  of  the  plague. 
Lust  begins  its  degrading  work  in  the  libidinous  desires 
and  visions  of  the  heart,  and  in  the  practice  of  self-abuse 
among  children.  This  unclean  devil  possesses  far  m.ore 
than  any  one  has  dreamed  of.  There  are  honest  phy- 
sicians, like  Dio  Lewis,  who  declare  it  is  almost  universal, 
and  that  to  these  secret  habits  of  self-pollution  are  traced 
the  nervous  disorders,  broken  constitutions  and  enfeebled 
intellect  of  tens  of  thousands  of  our  youth.  Said  the 
Q\{\Z2.%o  Inter-Ocean:  "Out  of  thirty-two  young  men 
in  New  York  City  who  were  recently  examined  for  West 
Point  cadetship,  only  nine  were  accepted  as  physically 
sound.  Such  a  note  might  well  make  the  young  men  of 
our  cities  pause  for  a  moment's  thought.  Beer,  the  cig- 
arette, too  much  amusement,  and  the  Hidden  Vices  are 
making  havoc  with  the  physical  manhood  of  all  our  towns 
and  cities." 

A  statement  comes  from  Detroit  to  the  effect  that 
during  the  last  eighteen  months  an  unusually  large 
number  of  young  men  had  been  sent  to  the  asylums  in 
the  state  of  Michigan.  It  was  suspected  that  cigarettes 
had  been  the  cause  of  the  malady;  but  Health  Officer 
Duffield,  after   examining  various  brands  of  cigarettes, 


Dying  at  the    7 op,  83 

found  no  opium  in  them,  and  expressed  it  as  his  belief 
that  insaniiy  was  not  caused  by  their  use. 

The  following  statement  from  a  distinguished 
physician  probably  will  explain  the  cause :  "  Would  I 
could  take  them  with  me  in  my  daily  round  (at  Ham- 
well  Asylum)  and  point  out  to  them  the  awful  conse- 
quences (of  self-abuse)  which  they  do  but  little  suspect 
to  be  the  result  of  its  indulgence.  I  could  show  them 
those  gifted  by  nature  with  high  talents,  and  fitted  to 
be  an  ornament  and  benefit  to  society,  sunk  into  such  a 
«tate  of  physical  and  moral  degradation  as  wrings  the 
heart  to  witness,  and  still  preserving,  with  the  last  rem- 
nant of  a  mind  gradually  sinking  into  fatuity,  the 
consciousness  that  their  helpless ,  wretchedness  is  the 
just  reward  of  their  own  misconduct."  It  was  under  this 
consciousness  of  self-ruin  that  a  young  man  exclaimed: 
'*  Medical  men,  who  know  about  such  things,  and  refuse 
to  speak  out  and  warn  the  young  against  this  vice, 
ought  to  be  killed,  every  one  of  them.  Just  a  hint 
from  my  father  or  the  family  doctor,  or  a  little  book, 
would  have  saved  me.  The  doctors,  and  the  clergy, 
and  parents,  and  all  the  rest  of  them  say,  *  No  !  keep  still ! 
You  must  not  say  a  word.'  What  in  heaven's  name  are 
doctors  and  parents  for,  if  they  can't  give  a  single  hint 
to  the  young  about  such  things?  If  I  had  a  million 
dollars  I  would  give  it  all  to  spread  information  jabout 
this  horrid  vice."  Says  Dio  Lewis:  "This  species  of 
indulgence  is  well-nigh  universal,  and  as  it  is  the  source 
of  all  the  other  forms — the  fountain  from  which  the 
external  vices  spring — I  am  surprised  to  find  how  little 
has  been  said  about  it.  I  have  looked  over  many  volumes 
upon  sexual  abuses,  but  do  not  recall  a  single  earnest 
discussion  on  this  point.  Believing  that  this  incon- 
tinence of  the  imagination  works  more  mischief  than 
all  other  forms  of  evil — that,  indeed,  it  gives  rise  to  all 
the  rest — I  am  astonished  that  it  has  received  so  little 
attention." 

The  extent  to  which  the  external  form  of  licentious- 
ness, known  as  the  social  evil,  has  become  prevalent,  is 


84  Dying  at  the    Top, 

awakening  serious  apprehensions  for  the  future  of 
American  society.  If  prostitution  undermined  and 
ruined  Greece,  and  Egypt,  and  Rome,  and  Venice;  if, 
in  a  spiritual  sense  it  has  enervated  the  Latin  races  of 
the  Continent;  our  modern  enterprise  and  our  multitudes 
of  churches  will  not  save  us,  if  this  same  vice  is  allowed 
to  capture  our  youth. 

A  traveling  man — an  elder  in  the  Presbyterian 
church — when  asked,  "  Do  you  find  in  your  travels  that 
our  young  men  practice  to  any  great  extent,  the  social 
evil?"  replied,  "Oh,  it  is  horrible!"  A  physician  of 
good  standing  who  was  asked,  "  To  what  extent  do  our 
young  men  violate  the  Seventh  Commandment?"  said, 
"Ninety  out  of  every  hundred  cohabit  with  women 
before  marriage." 

Another  physician  when  asked  the  same  question 
replied:  "  It  would  astonish  you — not  ten  men  out  of 
a  hundred  are  guiltless."  Still  another  physician — a 
member  of  the  church  and  a  praying  man — said :  "  I 
have  practiced  medicine  in  this  county,"  naming  it,  "for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  I  tell  you  not  five 
young  men  out  of  a  hundred  are  pure."  Still  another, 
of  unimpeached  character  and  grown  old  in  his  practice, 
said,  "When  I  was  a  young  man,  not  one  woman  in 
twenty  was  solicited  for  her  ruin ;  now  I  sometimes  think 
that  not  one  in  twenty  escapes  solicitation.'' 

These  statements  are  given,  not  on  the  supposition 
that  they  are  perfectly  accurate,  but  because  they  are 
the  opinions  of  serious  men  who  have  opportunities  of 
knowing  what  they  state.  There  are  communities 
where  the  per  cent,  of  pure  young  men  is  very  mucli 
greater  than  as  given  above.  Taking  the  country  over, 
perhaps  it  is  stating  too  much  to  say  that  only  one  in  ten 
young  men  is  free  from  the  guilt  of  adultery.  The 
very  safest  judges,  in  the  presence  of  some  great  evil, 
are  likely  to  over-estimate  its  prevalence.  But  when 
sober,  serious  men  make  such  statements  as  those  above 
given,  the  exact  truth — if  we  could  find  it — must  be 
startling.     From  all  sides  the  testimony  is  uniform  that 


Dying  at  the   7^op.  85 

the  young  men  of  this  day,  as  a  class,  are  impure,  and 
that  licentiousness  is  rapidly  on  the  increase. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  written  me 
by  one  of  our  State  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
Secretaries.     Its  testimony  is  in  the  same  line: 

"A  letter  came  a  few  years  ago  from  a  city  now 
numbering  eighteen  thousand,  in  which  the  charge  was 
made  that  in  the  middle  and  lower  classes  nine-tenths  of 
the  girls  were  ruined  before  marriage.  Being  in  that 
city  a  few  months  afterward  I  mentioned  the  charge  to 
a  physician  of  large  practice,  with  the  remark  that  *  It 
could  not  be  true.'  'I  don't  know,'  said  he;  *a  friend  of 
mine,  a  physician,  has  just  told  me  that  he  now  knows 
oi  forty  girls  who  are  soon  to  become  mothers.'" 

A  railroad  man  having  a  large  number  of  men  in  his 
employ,  stated  that  every  one  of  them  visited  bagnios. 
Said  a  gentleman  to  me:  "I  hav^e  twenty-five  men 
under  me,  and  only  three  of  them  refrain  from  intoxi- 
cating drinks."  I  asked  how  many  of  them  refrain 
from  sinning  with  women.  After  hesitating  a  moment 
he  replied  :  "  About  as  many,"  An  Assistant  Secretary 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  in  one  of 
our  great  cities,  in  speaking  of  the  prevalence  of  the 
social  vice  among  young  men,  said:  "We  have  even 
found  that  some  of  our  Yoke  Fellow  Band  have  been 
visiting  these  bad  houses." 

A  letter  comes  from  Jamestown,  N.  Y.,  saying: 
"Twenty-six  young  men  entered  one  house  of  ill-fame 
in  one  hour  on  a  recent  evening  in  this  city.  A  proprie- 
tress of  one  of  these  places  is  known  to  have  stated 
recently  that  she  took  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
in  one  week." 

I  give  the  following  from  one  of  our  Louisville 
dailies,  because  I  know  the  truth  of  the  statements. 
It  is  addressed  to  the  ladies  of  the  two  fashionable 
streets  of  the  city. 

"  Dear  ladies,  are  you  aware  of  the  fact  that  some  of 
you  have  sons  of  the  tender  ages  of  twelve  to  sixteen 
years,  who,   after  visiting   a  place  of  harmless  amuse- 


S6  Dying  at  the   Top^ 

merit,  go  to  a  popular  eating-house  and  noisily  partake 
of  a  midnight  lunch,  then  enter  a  neighboring  saloon 
(bar-room),  and  after  an  indulgence  in  beer,  wine  or 
whisky,  resort  to  the  purlieus  of  Green  and  Grayson 
streets?  At  3  o'clock  in  the  morning  these  scions  of 
excellent  families,  having  finished  the  night's  carousal, 
return  home  and  slip  upstairs  to  bed.  This  is  no  fancy 
picture,  and  the  scenes  may  be  witnessed  nearly  every 
night.  Mothers !  take  a  peep  into  your  boys'  sleeping^ 
apartments  occasionally  and  you  may  save  a  valuable 
life  from  wreck  and  ruin  !  " 

From  traveling  men  themselves  comes  the  state- 
ment that  young  men  "on  the  road"  are  greatly  given 
to  licentiousness.  "  Drummers,"  as  a  class,  have  a  better 
reputation  than  they  once  had,  for  merchants  have  found 
that  they  cannot  afford  to  employ  men  who  are  known 
to  be  corrupt — but  thousands  of  them  visit  houses  of 
ill-fame  as  regularly  as  they  go  to  their  meals.  Worse^ 
by  far,  than  drummers,  are  the  young  men  who  travel 
with  amusement  troupes.  They  infest  our  streets  after 
night;  they  deliberately  lay  their  schemes  for  the  ruin  of 
girls  foolish  enough  to  be  pleased  with  their  attentions. 
How  often  they  succeed,  those  in  the  ranks  of  abandoned 
women  can  best  testify.  Said  a  clergyman  whose  life- 
work  is  the  rescuing  of  women  from  houses  of  ill-fame : 
"The  most  of  the  girls  who  resort  to  these  houses  in 
their  shame,  have  been  ruined  by  traveling  men." 

These  facts  thus  far  have  come  from  the  northern 
states.  But  when  one  turns  his  face  southward,  the 
same  condition  of  things  stares  him  in  the  face.  Said 
a  gentleman  to  me,  "  in  all  the  region  where  I  lived,  there 
were  only  two  young  men — brothers — who  were  known 
to  be  absolutely  pure,  and  they  were  looked  on  as  some- 
thing wonderful.  People  said  they  ought  to  be  min- 
isters." 

Slavery,  while  it  existed,  degraded  the  negro  women ; 
but  they  remained  women,  none  the  less,  and  possessed 
all  the  attractions  woman  has  for  minds  that  are  impure. 
Their  degradation  threw  off  the  white  men  the  restraint 


Dying  at  the   Tof,  87 

that  social  equality  begets  in  the  presence  of  white 
women;  and  negresses  in  the  South,  took  the  place  of 
the  houses  of  prostitution  in  the  North.  Thus  it 
happens,  that  while  the  white  men  of  the  South  degraded 
the  negro  women,  they  now,  in  their  turn,  are  degrading 
the  whites  through  their  young  men  and  boys.  A  clergy- 
man, who  was  born  in  the  South  and  knows  its  people 
well,  said  that  twenty  out  of  every  hundred  mulatto 
women  are  mistresses  of  white  men  and  boys,  and 
"  society  does  not  seem  to  care  much  for  it."  Said  a 
gentleman  who  has  traveled  extensively  in  the  South  : 
"Many  boys  of  fourteen  years  of  age  have  their  *  coons,' 
as  they  call  their  colored  mistresses."  A  judge  remarked 
to  this  same  gentleman,  "  I  have  daughters  and  the 
young  men  of  the  city  call  on  them;  but  I  do  not  know 
but  that,  ten  minutes  before  they  call  or  ten  minutes 
after,  they  have  been  in  the  embrace  of  negro  women." 
A  southern  young  man  related  to  a  business  man,  as 
coolly  and  indifferently  as  if  it  had  been  an  item  of  trade, 
how  he  and  certain  companions  had  attended  a  "  swell" 
party  in  the  city  where  they  lived,  took  home  their  girls 
after  the  gathering  had  broken  up,  and  then  spent  the 
balance  of  the  night  with  mulatto  girls.  And  when 
asked  whether  that  was  a  common  thing  among  the 
young  men  of  his  city,  replied,  "  Oh,  yes,  very  common." 

The  following  extract   from  a  letter  received  from 
a  Southern  merchant,  speaks  for  itself: 

"  My  observation  would  lead  me  to  say  that  boys 
as  young  as  fourteen  may  be  heard  talking  in  their 
boasting  way  of  their  'coons,*  as  they  call  them,  and  if 
half  they  claim  is  true,  they  may  be  found  in  bad  houses 
kept  by  the  dusky  maidens  as  often  as  their  elders.  *  *  * 
I  have  heard  good  Christian  young  men  say  that  they 
were  actually  seduced  by  their  nurses  or  J' mammas,' 
as  they  call  the  darkies  who  take  care  of  them  from  the 
cradle  to  an  age  of  independence.  *  *  »  But  the 
fault  docs  not  lie  wholly  with  the  nurse,  for  married 
men,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  raise  whole  families  of  these  *  off 
whites'  right  on  their  premises,  and  you  can  hear  small 


88  Dying  at  the   Top. 

boys  speaking  of  this  or  that  darkey  as  being  the  son 
of  some  prominent  man.  *  *  *  i  regard  the  state 
of  morals  found  in  the  South  as  being  one  of  the  curses 
of  slavery,  when  each  young  man  had  his  'coon'  on  the 
plantation  and  nothing  was  thouofht  of  it." 

The  extent  of  the  social  evil  among  men  may  be 
learned  from  the  number  of  women  who  are  engaged  in 
it  as  a  business.  Mr.  Dugdale,  who  had  large  oppor- 
tunities forjudging,  says  in  his  "Jukes,"  that  the  number 
of  prostitutes  in  our  cities  is  about  1.8  per  cent,  to  the 
hundred  women,  or  eighteen  in  one  thousand.  The 
testimony  of  such  authors  as  Dio  Lewis  and  Kellogg  is 
that  the  "kept"  mistresses  far  outnumber  the  prostitutes 
of  the  bagnios.  It  is  not  placing  the  average  above  the 
estimates  of  competent  judges  to  say  that  there  are  four 
courtesans  to  every  hundred  women  between  the  ages  of 
sixteen  and  forty — or  one  in  twenty-five. 

Some  time  since,  in  a  lecture  in  Springfield,  Ohio,  I 
stated  that  there  were  two  hundred  and  sixteen  women 
of  public  ill-fame  in  Omaha,  who  paid  a  tax  on  their 
prostitution.  When  I  was  through,  a  student  at  the 
Wittenberg  Theological  Seminary  stated  to  me  that,  at 
the  Alliance  that  met  in  Omaha  in  1888,  the  names  of 
four  hundred  of  these  women  were  given;  and  that,  when 
in  that  city  recently,  a  gentleman  who  was  in  a  position 
to  know  told  him  that  there  were  one  thousand  fallen 
women  in  Omaha.  Putting  the  number  at  eight 
hundred — twice  that  of  the  public  women — and  you 
will  have  one  fallen  woman  for  every  twenty-five  women 
between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  forty. 

The  following  from  the  Daily  Herald  of  Omaha  of 
July  II,  is  pitiful,  when  you  consider  that  "the  Silent 
Ones"  are  the  daughters  of  American  homes: 

"  A  very  handsome  income  indeed  is  the  city's  share 
of  the  profits  of  prostitution  in  Omaha.  The  sum 
varies  slightly  each  month,  but  one  thousand  five  hundred 
dollars  is  a  low  estimate  of  the  average  receipts  per 
month.  This  month  the  amount  bids  fair  to  exceed  this 
figure,  one   thousand   one   hundred   and   seventy-three 


Dying  at  the   Top.  89 

dollars  and  fifty  cents  having  been  paid  to  the  Clerk  of 
the  Court  yesterday  All  through  the  day,  a  silent  pro- 
cession wound  its  way  to  the  Clerk's  desk  and  another 
line  of  silent  ones  glided  out.  If  a  child  brought  the 
money  it  was  invariably  a  sable  skinned  cherub.  Trusted 
negro  women,  servants,  and,  in  a  few  cases,  the  keepers  of 
houses  appeared  in  person. 

"'  Do  we  look  upon  this  monthly  tribute  as  upon  a 
fine?'  One  of  the  latter  class  repeated  the  question  put 
to  her,  and  replied:  'A  fine — why  should  we?  when  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  it  is  a  license,  alike  in  all  cases, 
with  a  large  fee  from  us  who  run  the  houses?  The  city 
and  state  laws  would  have  the  world  believe  us  all 
criminals.  But  we  are  not.  Oh,  no;  that  couldn't  be, 
because  the  city  exacts  a  share  of  our  receipts  and  so 
becomes  our  partner.  If  confidence  men,  and  burglars, 
and  the  like  would  do  their  work  without  fear  of  punish- 
ment they  should  make  the  city  a  partner.  I  am  opposed 
to  the  license  because  if  our  business  can  be  made  legal 
by  a  bit  of  hush  money  tendered  the  city  every  month, 
why  then  it  is  legal  without  that  formalit)'.  But  it 
would  be  very  impolite  to  refuse  to  pay  the  license.  The 
result  would  be  like  refusing  to  give  the  road  to  a 
locomotive.'" 

Having  seen  in  one  of  our  periodicals  the  statement 
that  there  are  ten  thousand  "public  women"  in  San 
Francisco,  I  sent  the  clip  to  Robert  S.  Boyns,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  that 
city,  and  asked  him  with  reference  to  the  truth  of  it. 
From  him  comes  the  reply : 

"  As  regards  the  number  of  public  prostitutes  in  the 
city  I  will  quote  from  a  letter  which  I  have  just  received 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  California  Society  for  the 
Suppression  of  Vice.  He  says:  'Some  two  years  ago 
I  undertook  a  count  of  the  houses  given  up,  notoriously 
only,  to  prostitution  in  San  Francisco,  and  the  count 
also  of  women  who  are  knov/n  as  public  prostitutes.  At 
that  time  I  reckoned  that  there  were  eight  hundred  of 
that  class,  not  including  the  Chinese.     It  would  not  be 


90  Dying  at  the   Top, 

surprising  to  me  now  if  one  thousand  two  hundred  could 
be  counted.'" 

"Personally  I  consider  this  a  very  conservative 
estinnate.  There  are  four  streets  here  wholly  given  up 
to  houses  for  prostitutes,  and  parts  of  two  others. 

"  The  extent  to  which  young  men  here  visit  these 
places  is  simply  appalling.  San  Francisco  is  a  regular 
home  for  quack  doctors  who  do  more  to  increase  the 
vice  than  perhaps  any  other  agency. 

"It  would  be  impossible  to  say  how  many  young 
men  here  visit  these  places  habitually.  Certainly  thou- 
sands do,  and  then  there  is  a  whole  army  of  men  who 
have  what  are  called  'kept  women.'" 

Omaha  and  San  Francisco  are  not  exceptions  to  all 
our  large  cities.  In  the  census  of  1880,  staid  old  Phila- 
delphia confessed  to  five  hundred  and  seventeen  houses 
of  ill-fame;  Baltimore  to  three  hundred,  and  New 
Orleans  to  three  hundred  and  sixty-five.  Any  one  can 
do  his  own  figuring  as  to  the  proportion  of  the  women 
employed  in  these  houses.  The  census  will  show  about 
one-fifth  of  the  population  of  any  city  to  be  women  from 
fifteen  to  forty  years  of  age.  Take  Frederick  H.  Wines' 
average  of  five  women  to  each  bagnio,  and  then  Dio 
Lewis'  plan  of  doubling  the  public  women  to  include  all 
the  loose  women  in  a  city.  When  this  is  done,  he  will 
be  astonished  at  the  army  of  the  fallen  that  move 
nightly  on  behind  the  curtains  of  social  life,  thousands 
of  them  sent  where  they  are  by  the  falsity  of  the  men 
whom  they  have  trusted,  and  bewailing  the  fate  forced 
on  them  for  life,  partly  by  people  who  worship  very  ' 
reverently  at  the  altars  of  the  forgiving  Christ,  without 
doing  any  forgiving  themselves.  I  have  said  it  publicly 
and  say  it  again,  some  of  these  fallen  women  are  better 
than  many  who  are  out  of  the  bagnio,  but  who  scorn 
the  touch  of  the  penitent  sinner.  Physicians  tell  me 
that  from  this  doomed  class  come  some  of  the  most  kind  / 
and  tender  of  the  nurses  of  the  sick.  Why  do  these 
better  women  not  leave  their  degraded  life,  do  you  ask  ? 
Simply  because,  while  there  may  be  one  fallen  woman 


Dying  at  the   Top,  91 

in  every  twenty-five  of  their  sex,  there  is  not  one  woman 
in  twenty-five  who  would  not  cast  a  penitent  off  if  she 
were  to  wash  her  feet  with  tears  and  wipe  them  with 
the  hair  of  her  head.  Some  good  people  ought  to  shiver 
when  they  read — "Jesus  saith  unto  them,  verily  I  say 
unto  you  that  the  publicans  and  harlots  go  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God  before  you." 

But  these  ranks  of  fallen  women  must  live;  and 
many  are  supported  in  magnificence  by  their  prostitution. 
By  far  the  majority  of  their  patrons  are  young  men. 
But  in  very  large  cities  the  heavy  end  of  the  expense  is 
paid  by  married  men,  who  foot  any  bill  rather  than  be 
exposed. 

Young  men  are  always  welcomed,  but  as  a  class 
they  have  no  great  amount  of  money  to  spend,  and  so 
cannot  contribute  the  immense  sums  needed  to  meet 
the  outlays  of  the  more  fashionable  places  of  resort. 

One  of  the  surprising  discoveries  in  this  investiga- 
tion was  found  to  be  the  relation  of  many  physicians  to 
the  licentiousness  of  our  young  men.  Before  me  lies  a 
medical  work,  translated  and  recommended  "as  one  of 
sterling  merit."  One  of  the  doctrines  it  proclaims  is 
that  young  men  in  the  prime  and  vigor  of  their  early 
manhood  must  have  indulgence  for  their  passions,  or 
disease  must  result;  and  it  goes  so  far  as  to  explain  to 
them  how  they  can  visit  houses  of  ill-fame  and  prevent 
the  contagion  of  the  diseases  usually  prevailing  there. 
It  says: — "Considering  that  there  are  many  men  in 
large  cities  who  do  not  get  married,  because  they  either 
have  not  the  means  of  supporting  a  family,  or  because 
they  do  not  find  any  one  whom  they  desire  to  marry, 
prostitutes  seem  to  be  a  necessary  evil  for  the  time 
being." 

The  writer,  being  anxious  to  learn  to  what  extent 
the  Medical  Schools  and  practitioners  adopt  such  a 
theory,  has  communicated  with  a  number  of  reliable 
physicians.  The  result  has  been  a  sad  revelation  of  an 
unseen  and  largely  an  unknown  peril  to  our  young  men. 
Many  physicians  hold  to  Gollmann's  theory,  and  very 


92  Dying  at  the   Top 

many  more  recommend  to  young  men  who  have  injured 
themselves  by  self-abuse,  that  they  resort  to  nature's 
wayof  curing  themselves,  by  visiting  houses  of  ill-fame. 

When  I  asked  one  physician,  "Are  there  many 
doctors  who  give  young  men  such  counsel?"  he  replied, 
"Lots  of  them." 

A  physician  in  whom  I  have  the  greatest  confidence, 
sent  me  the  following  reply  to  some  questions  bearing 
on  this  subject : 

"  Physicians  disagree  in  their  opinions  as  to  the 
necessity  of  sexual  intercourse. 

"  Many  believe  it  to  be  necessary  to  health.  Others, 
and  among  them  some  of  the  best,  hold  to  the  opposite 
view.  My  opinion  is  that  the  first  class  are  in  the 
majority. 

"  I  know  of  no  medical  works  of  standing  which 
teach  the  doctrine  in  *  Gollmann's  Diseases.' 

"  Medical  works,  however,  are  generally  silent  on  this 
subject. 

"Medical  Colleges,  so  far  as  I  am  informed,  give  no 
such  instruction.  Medical  students,  as  physicians,  differ 
in  their  opinions  and  go  into  the  practice  with  such 
differences." 

The  great  defect  in  the  medical  science  of  the  day 
is  that  it  is  practically  materiaHstic.  The  majority  of 
physicians  are  not  only  not  Christians,  but  they  do  not 
hold  to  any  religious  belief.  Their  practice  requires  their 
attention  seven  days  of  the  week;  hence,  as  a  class,  they 
are  deprived  of  the  evangelizing  influences  of  contact 
with  religious  forms  and  devotions.  Many  of  them  arc 
agnostic  in  their  convictions,  and  practically  blot  out 
God  and  immortality  from  their  thoughts.  With  such 
men,  the  human  body  is  their  god.  To  cure  it  of  its 
diseases  is  their  glory;  and  they  will  cure  it  often  irre- 
spective of  methods  or  morals. 

He  who  advises  the  victim  of  self-pollution  to  secure 
health  by  commerce  with  women,  only  counsels  him  to 
escape  one  danger  by  plunging  into  a  greater.  He  recom- 
mends a  vice  as  a  remedy  for  an  abuse — a  sin  that  damns 


Dying  at  the    lop,  93 

the  soul  for  a  disease  that  damns  the  body.  Better  let 
a  young  man  go  to  the  asylum  and  die  a  raving  maniac, 
than  jeopardize  his  soul  by  indulgence  in  what  is  a  thou- 
sand times  worse  than  madness.  Indulgence  with 
woman,  outside  of  married  life,  is,  under  any  circum- 
stances, a  violation  of  one  of  God's  greatest  command- 
ments, and  must  incur  a  penalty  proportionate  to  its 
greatness.  Christ  would  not  even  tolerate  the  looking 
on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her.  He  pronounced  it  adultery. 
The  Scripture  law  of  morality  is  that  of  continence. 
"This  is  the  will  of  God,"  says  Paul,  "even  your  sanctifi- 
cation,  that  ye  should  abstain  from  fornication :  that 
every  one  of  you  should  know  how  to  possess  his  vessel 
in  sanctification  and  honor;  not  in  the  lust  of  concupis- 
cence, even  as  the  Gentiles  which  know  not  God,  for 
God  has  not  made  us  unto  uncleanness,  but  into  holiness." 
"  Know  ye  not  that  your  bodies  are  the  members  of 
Christ  ?  Shall  I  then  take  the  members  of  Christ  and 
make  them  the  members  of  a  harlot  ?  Flee  fornication ; 
he  that  commiteth  fornication  sinneth  agamst  his  own 
body" 

Physicians  who  give  this  horrid  counsel  to  young 
men,  seem  to  forget  that  it  involves  the  degradation  of 
women.  No  pure  young  woman  would  be  willing  to 
cure  any  young  man  from  the  results  of  his  personal 
uncleanness,  by  sacrificing  her  virtue.  None  but  harlots 
can  enter  into  the  materia  medica  of  these  so-called 
physicians;  and  what  is  a  harlot  but  an  abandoned 
woman — lost  to  honor — lost  to  the  world.  Must  younof 
men  be  cured  by  the  keeping  of  lost  women,  as  doctors 
keep  leeches,  for  sucking  the  blood?  Thi^ whole  doctrine 
is  monstrous — it  is  leprous  with  the  vileness  of  the 
infernal  pit,  and  young  men  should  shun  it  as  they  would 
shun  "  the  worm  that  dieth  not." 

So  do  such  physicians  forget  that  in  sending  young 
men  to  houses  of  ill-fame,  they  are  subjecting  them  to 
diseases  vastly  more  blighting  and  loathesome  than  any 
result  of  the  abuse  of  self. 

Said  a  physician  to  me:     "There  is  no  such  virulent 


94  Dying  at  the   Top, 

poison  in  nature  as  that  which  a  fallen  woman  commu- 
nicates to  any  one  who  touches  her."  Arsenic,  strych- 
nine, and  other  poisonous  substances,are,  in  our  drug  stores, 
labelled  with  the  skull  and  cross-bones,  and  placed  on 
shelves  from  which  they  are  not  taken  except  under  some 
physicians'  prescriptions  or  on  call  of  persons  who  are 
well  known.  Yet  these  poisons,  when  they  enter  the 
human  body  can  be  antidoted ;  and  in  time  the  system 
will  eliminate  every  particle  of  them.  But  the  poison 
to  which  a  physician  would  subject  a  young  man,  in 
sending  him  to  a  bad  house,  has  no  antidote.  When 
once  in  the  body  it  is  never  thrown  off;  it  lurks  there, 
like  a  wild  beast  lying  in  wait  for  its  prey,  and  may 
pounce  on  the  body  in  which  it  lives  at  any  moment. 
Said  a  gentleman,  pointing  to  the  splendid  residences 
on  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York,  "  I  would  not  for  all  these 
mansions  have  one  drop  of  syphilitic  poison  in  my  blood." 
What  is  still  worse,  this  dreadful  poison  goes  from  parent 
to  child  by  inheritance,  and  from  husband  to  wife  by 
contact,  until  the  home  is  filled  with  wretchedness. 
Yet  with  all  this  knowledge  before  them,  and  knowing 
that  there  is  no  certain  means  of  preventing  this  poison 
being  communicated  from  the  courtesan  to  her  male 
companion,  there  are  physicians  that  would  cure  young 
men  by  exposing  them  to  the  horrors  of  the  house  of  ill- 
repute.  Knowing  these  things  to  be  true,  the  very  best 
medical  works  and  medical  professors  are  silent.  They 
are  continually  instructing  medical  students  as  to  the 
best  methods  of  meeting  the  diseases  of  the  body;  but, 
every  year,  hundreds  of  these  students  are  sent  into  the 
world,  and  into  our  families,  with  low  ideas  of  personal 
virtue,  and  without  a  warning  from  book  or  professor 
against  such  unchristian  and  unchaste  doctrines  as  that 
quoted  from  Gollmann.  Let  parents  beware.  Physicians 
should  be  selected  for  your  children  with  the  same  care 
that  you  select  teachers  in  your  schools.  To  turn  a  boy 
over  to  some  traveling  doctor  whom  nobody  knows,  or 
to  some  home  physician  whose  morals  are  known  to  be 
bad,  is  reckless. 


Dying  at  the    Top,  95 

The  foregoing  facts  would  not  be  presented  here  if 
the  theory  they  involve  had  not  become  so  wide  spread. 
It  has  swe[)t  like  a  contagion  among  our  young  men, 
and  thousands  attempt  to  reason  themselves  into  the 
belief  of  it,  because  it  panders  to  their  lusts.  But  it  is 
an  utter  abomination;  the  tongue  that  proclaims  it  is 
"  set  on  fire  of  hell,"  and  the  young  man  who  commits 
himself  to  it,  is  doomed  beyond  hope.  The  very  swine 
of  our  styes  and  dogs  of  our  streets — with  passions  like 
our  own — can  survive  and  futten  in  their  continence. 
No  physician  dreams  that  indulgence  is  essential  to  their 
vitality.  And  why  cannot  young  men,  born  better  than 
brutes,  preserve  their  health  by  a  life  of  self  control? 
The  doctrine  of  continence  is  the  doctrine  of  virtue;  it  is 
that  of  the  medical  schools  of  the  day,  and  our  high- 
toned  physicians  scorn  the  couclusion  that  the  young 
man  must  be  indulged.  Nature  makes  no  mistakes;  she 
has  provided  profusely  in  all  her  secretions,  but  she  knows 
how  to  dispose  of  all  surplus  without  necessitating  any 
creature  to  commit  sin.  Says  Dio  Lewis  :  "If  a  healthy 
man  refrain  entirely  from  sexual  pleasure,  Nature  knows 
well  what  to  do  with  those  precious  atoms.  She 
finds  use  for  them  all  in  building  up  a  keener  brain  and 
more  vital  and  enduring  nerves  and  muscles." 

There  are  physicians  who  would  scorn  to  give  such 
counsel  as  has  been  mentioned ;  but  who,  \vhen  they  find 
a  young  man  abusing  himself,  will  advise  him  to  hunt  up 
some  nice  virtuous  young  woman  and  marry  her.  The 
only  difference  between  this  counsel  and  the  other  is  that 
it  transfers  licentiousness  in  many  cases  to  the  home, 
and  prostitutes  the  marriage  relation.  What  an  ex- 
alted idea  of  wedlock !  How  flattered  a  young  lady 
would  feel  if  she  knew  some  young  man,  in  response  to 
his  physician's  advice,  had  offered  his  hand  to  her  to  cure 
himself  of  a  bad  case  of  carnality.  There  is  enough 
licentiousness  carried  on  under  the  sanctity  of  wedlock 
already,  without  physicians  making  use  of  it  as  a  healer 
for  their  corrupt  young  patients. 

It  is  not  absolutely  necessary  that  men,  diseased 


96  Dying  at  the  Top, 

from  their  depravity,  should  be  cured  nor  that  they 
should  live.  Better  let  them  die  than  to  expose  woman- 
hood and  childhood  to  their  low  propensities. 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  I  introduce  here  Dr. 
J.  D.  Buck,  Dean  of  the  Pulte  Medical  College  at  Cin- 
cinnati, and  one  of  the  best  physicians  and  educators  in 
the  West.     With  his  consent  I  give  the  following  letter: 

Rev.  J.  W.  Clokey, 

My  Dear  Sir — 

I  have  read  your  letter  of  i8th  inst.  and  your  pam- 
phlet "  Dying  at  the  Top."  You  do  not  overstate  the 
crime  of  the  age  that  man  commits  against  himself,  and 
against  the  divinity  within  him.  You  diagnose  the  disease 
correctly,  and  my  own  experience  for  more  than  twenty- 
five  years  justifies  all  you  say,  and  far  more.  But  as  to 
cause  and  remedy,  pardon  me  if  I  say  you  must  in  my 
judgment  go  far  deeper.  If  the  "  family  altar"  be  indeed 
the  halo  of  divine  life,  instead  of  a  mere  outward  form, 
hurried  through  in  order  that  the  postulants  may  rush 
to  "  business,"  it  will  be  indeed  well.  If  the  progenitors  of 
"our  boys"  practice  unrestrained  licentiousness  in  wed- 
lock, the  transmission  of  lust  is  as  sure  as  though  the 
prostitution  were  not  sanctioned  by  "law."  This  disease, 
my  brother,  is  deeper  seated,  ingrained,  and  is  as  surely 
transmitted,  in  spite  of  the  family  altar,  as  where  nothing" 
of  the  kind  exists.  You  have  touched  the  issue  of  all 
our  diseases,  but  the  remedy  must  be  more  than  a  palli- 
ative. Cut  out  the  plague  spot  and  the  ulcer  will 
not  heal.  The  treatment  must  be  constitutional  and 
radical,  and  preventive  as  you  say.  Any  doctor  who 
recommends  prostitution  to  cure  masturbation  is  ready  to 
damn  two  souls  to  save  one  body,  and  deserves  to  be 
hooted  in  his  community.  We  need  to  move  bodily  to 
higher  planes;  young  and  old,  male  and  female,  in  wedlock 
and  out  of  wedlock.  The  religion  of  Christendom  is  a 
sham.  The  religion  of  Christ  is  an  everlasting  verity.  I 
have  written  hurriedly  because  I  must,  but  I  take  you  to 
be  dead  in  earnest,  and  if  so,  you  will  find  the  whole 


Dying  at  the    7of.  97 

truth  and  the  remedy.  This  truth  will  not  dishonor 
Christ,  or  break  down  real  Christianity,  but  honor  the 
one  and  save  the  other. 

Sincerely  yours, 

J.  D.  Buck. 

July  19,  1889. 

In  one  of  our  court  rooms  sits  a  young  man  under 
the  charge  of  murder.  The  crime  has  been  committed 
under  circumstances  such  that  the  jury  can  bring  in  but 
one  verdict,  and  that  is  death. 

The  face  of  the  prisoner  must  once  have  been  an 
attractive  one.  The  brow  is  full ;  the  features  are  regu- 
lar; the  eye  is  bright,  but  from  the  face  every  expression 
of  manhood  is  gone.  It  is  a  face  one  both  fears  and 
pities.  Not  a  friend  sits  near  him.  An  attorney 
appointed  by  the  court  pleads  his  case.  But  the  pris- 
oner is  listless.  He  evidently  has  neither  hope  nor 
despair.  All  the  finer  elements  of  the  human  soul  are 
dead  in  him,  and  he  does  not  care  what  becomes  of  him. 
The  "  worms  beneath  the  bark "  have  done  their  work, 
and  there  is  not  a  green  leaf  nor  fresh  twig  left.  The 
law  may  kill  his  body,  but  others  have  already  killed  his 
soul.  Not  a  nerve  moves,  not  a  feature  is  changed  as  the 
jury  files  in  and  reports  its  verdict  of  guilty  of  murder 
in  the  first  degree. 

Verdict !  Verdict !  Where  is  the  jury  that  will 
bring  a  "verdict"  against  the  father  and  mother,  and 
saloon-keeper,  and  courtesan,  and  physician,  and  the 
society  that  have  made  this  criminal  what  he  is  ?  It  is 
Gracey.  Poor  fellow  !  the  last  that  is  seen  of  him  is  in 
the  dissecting  room  of  a  medical  college.  He  had 
bequeathed  his  body  to  the  college.  Before  he  is  cut  up 
and  thrown  into  the  vat,  some  students,  young  men  like 
himself,  prop  up  his  nude  body,  place  a  silk  hat  on  his 
head,  arrange  themselves  around  him  with  silk  hats  on 
their  heads,  and  have  their  photographs  taken.  It  is  a 
fit  closing  to  the  farce  called  human  brotherhood,  in 
which  an  immortal  soul  comes  into  life  in  sin,  passes 
through  it  in  neglect,  and  goes  out  with  a  jest.     What 


98  Dying  at  the  Top. 

God   thinks   of    the  whole   procedure   will   be   learned 
farther  on. 

"It  must  needs  be  that  offences  come,  but  woe  to 
that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh." 


CHAPTER  VI. 


HOPE. 


Clouds,  black  and  ominous,  hang  right  over  us  in  our 
national  sky,  and  the  heavens  are  full  of  angry  mutterings; 
but  above  shines  the  sun,  and  its  beams  come  flooding 
through  the  rifts  in  the  darkness,  telling  us  the  day  is 
not  far  away.  Clouds  at  best  are  only  transient  things 
and  have  never  long  resisted  the  glory  and  warmth 
streaming  from  beyond  them.  The  sun,  not  the  storm- 
'folds,  is  the  king  of  earth,  hence  brightness  is  the  daily 
promise  for  the  future.  When  one  looks  backward 
through  the  ages  of  human  history  he  finds  society  at  a 
hundred  points  in  a  vastly  worse  condition  than  it  is  in 
our  country  to-day.  It  was  worse  in  the  England  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  when  infidelity  and  social 
corruption  were  almost  universal;  but  God  sent  the 
Wesleys  to  sound  the  alarm,  and  one  of  the  greatest 
reformations  of  history  was  the  result. 

Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  so  fearfully  corrupt 
that  for  awhile  it  looked  as  ijf  there  would  never  come  a 
reaction.  But  under  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Knox 
society  swung  back  toward  God  in  that  marvellous 
movement  that  gave  us  all  the  glory  of  our  modern  civ- 
ilization. At  the  close  of  the  old  era  and  at  the  coming 
of  Christ,  Paganism  was  supreme  everywhere  but  in 
Judea,  and  Judaism  had  become  degraded  to  Pharisee- 
ism;  but  under  the  preaching  of  John  and  Christ  and 
the  disciples,  out  of  that  chaos  of  ignorance  and  vice 
sprang  the  ISFew  Testament  era,  that  in  four  hundred 
years  brought  a   Christian  King  to  the  throne  of  the 


Dying  at  the   7'op,  99 

Caesars.  In  tlie  days  of  Ahab  in  Israel,  idolatry,  on  the 
surface  of  national  life,  had  possession  of  everything; 
but,  in  the  retreats  of  Judea,  were  seven  thousand  who 
had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.  Individuals  often 
become  thoroughly  depraved,  but  society  never  has  and 
never  will.  God  ever  preserves  a  "  seed "  to  do  Hina 
service,  and  that  "  seed "  at  every  crisis'  point  has  pos- 
sessed sufficient  numerical  and  spiritual  power  to  throw 
back  the  tide  of  sin.  It  was  society's  latent  godliness 
which,  called  into  activity  by  the  Elijahs  and  Johns 
and  Wesleys,  lifted  mankind  from  idolatry  to  Chris- 
tianity, destroyed  Phariseeism,  Paganism,  the  old-time 
Papacy  and  English  Deism,  at  each  victory  exalting 
n  ankind  to  a  higher  level  from  which  it  has  never 
receded.  The  student  of  history  cannot  lose  hope. 
The  gradual  rise  of  the  Christian  tide  is  unmistakable. 
Sometimes  the  waters  have  stood  still,  and  even  seemed 
to  ebb  far  out  from  shore;  but  he  who  waited  and  trusted 
saw  them  come  back  again  with  a  mightier  power.  This 
is  the  best  era  the  world  has  ever  known  ;  and  this  is  the 
best  decade  of  that  era.  Before  us  is  still  a  better; 
beyond  that  a  better;  beyond  that  a  better — one  rising 
above  another,  like  peak  piercing  above  peak,  till  the 
heights  of  the  future  are  lost  from  sight  in  the  glory  of 
the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

The  present  diseased  condition  of  American  society 
is  functional,  not  constitutional.  We  are  in  an  era  of 
marvellous  progress.  This  progress  has  come  upon  us 
with  such  rapidity,  that  we  have  not  had  time  to  adjust 
ourselves  to  it.  The  wealth  of  the  country  has  advanced 
with  phenomenal  strides.  Money  has  never  been  so 
plentiful,  nor  so  easy  of  possession;  massive  fortunes 
have  been  made  in  half  a  life  time;  the  Goulds  and  Van- 
derbilts  have  accumulated  more  than  the  worth  of  many 
of  the  kingdoms  of  older  times.  American  youth  have 
been  dazzled  by  these  sudden  splendors,  and  lost 
their  balance  in  the  pursuit  of  riches.  The  speculations 
of  our  country  have  proven  maelstroms,  in  which  thou- 
sands  have   been   engulfed,  not    only    financially    but 


100  Dying  at  the  Top, 

morally.  By  and  by,  taught  in  the  school  of  bitter  ex- 
perience, we  will  settle  back  into  the  sober  ways  of  slow 
but  sure  accumulations,  when  our  young  men  will  be- 
come temperate  in  their  aspirations,  like  the  times  in 
which  they  live. 

The  inventive  genius  of  modern  times  has  thrown 
new  devices  broadcast  through  our  land  as  rapidly  as 
if  they  had  come  from  the  workshop  of  the  gods.  New 
machines,  new  weapons,  new  methods  of  communication 
and  transfer,  spring  hourly  into  form,  as  from  the  head 
of  Jove.  We  are  in  an  era  of  bewildering  advancement, 
and  can  scarcely  find  our  bearing.  In  the  meantime 
Vice  is  taking  advantage  of  these  improved  methods, 
and  crime  is  increasing  because  of  increased  facilities.  It 
speaks  through  the  telephone.  It  dispatches  over  our 
telegraph  wires.  It  rides  on  our  steam  cars  and  steam 
boats.  It  makes  use  of  our  improved  tools  and  ma- 
chinery and  we  cannot  at  present  prevent  it.  But  all 
these  inventions  and  discoveries  are  the  gifts  to  mankind 
of  a  virtuous,  not  a  vicious  genius.  They  have  added  to 
the  world's  blessings  vastly  more  than  to  the  world's 
wretchedness  and  crimes.  By  the  use  of  them  Faith 
is  outrunning  doubt;  Knowledge  is  blotting  out  ig- 
norance; Health  overcoming  disease,  and  Righteousness 
gaining  advantage  of  Sin.  Soon,  by  these  very  facilities, 
through  which  Vice  is  making  such  rapid  growth,  Vice 
itself  shall  be  mastered,  when  the  country  will  enter  a 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness. 

The  church  has  never  been  so  fully  equipped  to 
meet  any  crisis  as  she  is  to-day.  The  world  believes  in 
the  divinity  of  her  mission,  so  she  can  leave  the  defensive 
and  enter  on  the  widest  aggressive  work.  She  is  aggres- 
sive. Her  forces  are  united,  and  they  are  moving  into 
every  town  and  section  of  the  land.  They  are  preach- 
ing the  gospel "  to  every  creature."  They  are  waiting  at 
Castle  Garden  to  redeem  the  emigrant;  building  Bethels 
to  reach  the  sailor  from  the  seas  and  the  lakes,  and  the 
boatmen  on  our  streams.    They  are  waiting  in  "Way- 


Dying  at  the   To'p.  101 

farers'  Inns"  and  "  Missions,"  to  catch  the  drunken  men 
and  the  fallen  women  from  the  **  down-town  wards  "  of 
our  great  cities;  they  are  hewing  their  way  among  the 
pineries  of  the  North ;  delving  among  the  miners  of  the 
hills  and  mountains;  in  the  South,  they  are  reclaiming  the 
negro,  and  in  the  West,  the  emigrant  and  the  Indian. 
This  whole  land  is  surrounded  and  permeated  through 
and  through  by  lines  of  Christian  watchfires,  so  that,  if 
ten  righteous  men  would  have  saved  Sodom,  we  are,  be- 
yond a  doubt,  safe  in  the  hands  of  our  Christian  forces. 

Among  the  young  men  in  American  institutions  of 
learning,  the  average  as  to  character  has  never  been  so 
high.  Indeed,  outside  of  home,  there  is  no  place  where  it 
is  so  safe  for  parents  to  have  their  boys  as  in  an  Ameri- 
can college. 

Professor  Shaler  of  Harvard  says — "The  student  of 
to-day  is  a  vast  moral  improvement  over  the  student  of 
thirty  years  ago." 

In  1813,  Princeton  had  three  church  members;  now 
over  one-half  are  enrolled  Christians. 

At  Williams,  of  the  two  hundred  and  eighty-six  stu- 
dents, one  hundred  and  fifty-eight  are  church  members. 

At  Amherst,  two  hundred  and  thirty- three  out  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  are  in  the  church.  Over  one- 
half  of  the  students  at  Bowdoin  are  connected  with  the 
college  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  In  1795, 
Yale  had  but  four  or  five  professing  Christians,  and  the 
atmosphere  was  decidedly  sceptical,  but  in  the  academic 
department  in  1886-7,  of  the  five  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  enrolled  two  hundred  and  forty-seven  were  members 
of  evangelical  churches. 

Four  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  five  hundred  and 
fifty  students  at  Wellesley  College  are  members  of  the 
Christian  Association  and  have  signed  the  pledge,  thus 
declaring  their  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  their  Lord  and 
Saviour,  and  dedicating  their  lives  to  His  service. 

In  Iowa  College,  out  of  twenty-four  seniors  twenty- 
three  are  Christians;  out  of  thirty-four  juniors  twenty- 
seven  are  Christians;  out  of  fifty-four  sophomores,  fifty- 


102  Dying  at  the   Top, 

two;  and  out  of  sixty-two  freshmen,  fifty;  and  all  in  the 
last  two  graduating  classes. 

Five  colleges  in  Georgia,  in  1887,  graduated  one 
hundred  and  fourteen  young  men,  ninty-four  of  whom 
were  professors  of  religion.  In  Park  College,  Missouri, 
almost  every  student  is  a  Christian. 

The  March  number  of  the  Monthly' Bulletin  of  the 
University  of  Michigan,  states  that  of  the  one  thousand 
five  hundred  and  sixty-three  pupils  in  all  departments  in 
that  University,  eight  hundred  and  five  are  professing 
Christians.  Of  the  two  thousand  one  hundred  and 
thirty-one  students  in  Presbj'terian  Colleges  in  the 
United  States,  one  thousand  four  hundred  and  fifteen 
are  church  members.  Six  hundred  of  the  twelve  hun- 
dred young  men  in  the  nine  colleges  of  Virginia  are  mem- 
bers of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  The  in- 
terest among  the  students  of  the  country  in  Foreign  Mis- 
sion work  is  truly  wonderful,  and  omens  well  for  the 
future.  Two  of  Princeton's  young  men  have  been  mak- 
ing a  canvass  of  our  colleges  and  seminaries  for  the  names 
of  pupils  willing  to  become  foreign  missionaries.  They 
have  heard  from  ninety-two  institutions,  and  in  these 
are  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  twenty-five  persons 
who  are  willing  to  go  to  a  foreign  field,  all  but  three 
hundred  of  whom  are  young  men. 

These  facts  are  given  in  such  full  details,  because  they^ 
help  us  take  our  bearino^s,  to  know  just  where  we  are  in 
our  search  for  the  lost  young  man. 

It  has  been  referred  to  as  a  discouraging  omen  that 
so  many  of  our  people  are  crowding  into  our  cities. 

From  the  census  report  of  1880,  we  learn  that 
thirteen  million  of  our  fifty  millions,  are  in  cities  ranging 
from  four  thousand  population  upward,  i.  e.,  more  than 
one-fourth,  taking  the  country  at  large.  But  in  the 
older  states,  the  proportion  is  much  greater.  More  than 
half  of  New  York's  five  millions  are  in  her  cities  and  more 
than  one-fifth  in  the  city  of  New  York  alone.  In  Connec- 
ticut more  than  one-half  are  in  cities ;  so  it  is  in  New 
Jersey,  and  nearly  the  same  in  Maryland ;  Massachusetts 


Dying  at  the  Top.  103 

has  twice  as  many  people  in  her  cities  as  in  the  country. 
By  1890,  Chicago  alone  will  have  one-fourth  of  the  entire 
population  of  Illinois,  and  Philadelphia  one-fourth  of  the 
great  state  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  young  men  of  the  country  are  crowding  into 
our  cities  more  than  any  other  class;  thousands  of  them 
are  leaving  their  homes  to  try  their  fortunes  alone  in  the 
stores,  workshops,  and  professions  of  the  city;  in  doing 
so,  it  is  agreed  that  they  expose  themselves  far  beyond 
what  they  do  by  remaining  in  the  country.  They  come 
where  vice  is  gilded,  and  so  greatly  more  alluring;  they 
are  thrown  into  contact  with  clubs  and  associations,  and 
so  lose  something  of  their  independence,  and  come 
more  under  the  spell  of  association.  The  attractions  of 
the  low  theatres  and  of  the  saloons  abound  on  every 
hand.  How  can  a  young  man  change  from  the  country 
to  the  city  without  vastly  increasing  the  risks  of  losing 
his  immortal  soul?  This  reasoning  appears  plausible, 
and  has  passed  almost  without  questioning;  but  I  venture 
to  join  issue,  and  affirm  that  the  young  man  is  better 
off,  both  materially  and  spiritually,  in  our  American 
cities  than  in  the  country.  The  country  is  not  the 
harmless  place  it  is  considered  by  many  to  be;  human 
nature  is  no  better  out  among  the  farms  than  in  among 
the  streets.  Any  one  who  has  spent  his  boyhood  days 
in  a  country  school  house,  knows  that  the  tempter  is 
there  with  his  wares,  vending  them  without  the  refine- 
ments and  blandishments  thrown  round  sin  in  city 
life.  Taking  all  things  into  account,  it  is  far  more  safe 
to  bring  up  a  family  of  children  in  the  city  than  in  the 
country.  There  is  more  vice  in  the  city,  but  there  is 
more  vii'tue.  The  stimulants  to  do  right  are  a  hundred 
fold  increased;  there  are  more  appeals  to  our  manhood; 
higher  ideals  are  set  before  us  ;  more  eyes  are  watching 
us,  and  more  voices  calling  to  us  to  aspire  and  attain. 

The  best  of  everything  has  always  been  in  the  city: 
the  best  preachers,  the  best  physicians,  best  lawyers, 
best  schools,  best  churches.  In  music,  amusements, 
social  exchanges,  opportunities  to  advance,  the  city  has 


104  Dying  at  the   Top. 

everything ;  the  country  almost  nothing.  It  has  been 
said  that  our  city  people  would  degenerate,  if  fresh  blood 
did  not  flow  in  from  the  country.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  whilst  many  of  our  distinguished  men  have 
come  from  the  farms,  they  have  been  made  by  the  city, 
just  as  the  ore,  coming  from  the  quiet  hillsides,  is  in  the 
city  foundries  and  shops  transformed  into  articles  for 
universal  use. 

The  great  problems  of  our  times  are  to  be  met  and 
solved  in  the  cities.  The  forces  in  the  conflict  are 
centering  there.  The  seven  cities  of  Chicago,  Buffalo, 
Brooklyn,  Pittsburg,  Philadelphia,  New  York  and  Cin- 
cinnati, alone,  have  supplied  more  than  one-sixth  of  the 
membership  of  the  Northern  Presbyterian  Church,  and 
more  than  one-third  of  the  money  spent  in  Home  and 
Foreign  Missions. 

Let  the  young  men  come ;  a  splendid  army  stands 
ready  to  surround  them,  and  it  will  save  them  just 
as  soon  as  we.  learn  how  to  dispose  of  and  utilize  our 
forces. 

The  church  has  put  into  the  field  two  new  divis- 
ions, that  are  already  doing  effective  service;  it  is  the 
Christian  Woman  and  the  Christian  Young  Man.  Wo- 
man has  better  timber  in  her  than  was  ever  dreamed  of  in 
human  philosophy;  she  has  proven  herself  fully  capable 
of  supplying  men's  place  in  the  industries  of  che  world; 
she  is  just  as  good  at  one  end  of  the  telephone  as  the 
young  man  is  at  the  other.  As  young  men  are  dropping 
out  as  clerks,  salesmen,  treasurers,  on  account  of  their  dissi- 
pations, women  are  taking  their  places,  and  filling  them 
with  as  much  ability,  and  more  integrity;  if  all  the 
young  men  of  the  land  were  to  go  on  a  prolonged  spree, 
our  women  would  man  the  old  ship,  and  steer  us  over 
the  rapids. 

To  the  Christian  woman  we  are  looking  for  the 
toning  up  of  the  great  underlying  principles  of  personal 
and  national  life.  She  is,  by  example  and  heroic  prac- 
tice, teaching  us  the  doctrines  of  a  higher,  holier  service; 
she  is  making  man's  character  more   temperate,  more 


Dying  at  the   Top,  105 

pure,  more  Christ-like.  What  reform  and  redemption 
owe  to  such  women  as  those  who  now  fill  the  ranks  of 
the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  will  never  be 
known,  till  the  day  God  takes  some  of  the  brightest 
crowns  of  his  royal  realm,  and  places  them  on  their  heads. 
To-day  they  surround  our  young  men  like  a  cloud  of 
shining  witnesses,  and  the  voices  of  the  best  mothers, 
wives,  daughters  and  sisters  the  world  has  ever  seen 
are  calling  to  them  to  run  with  patience  the  race 
set  before  them,  and  those  voices  v/ill  yet  be  heard. 
From  every  plea,  and  song,  and  prayer,  hope  springs  like 
a  white-winged  seraph. 

"Similia  similibus  curantur." 

That  means,  similars  cure  similars;  it  is  the  motto  of  the 
Homeopath,  under  which  he  expects  to  cure  a  disease 
by  administering  remedies  that  in  the  proving  produce 
symptoms  similar  to  the  symptoms  of  the  disease. 
Whether  this  is  a  correct  principle  in  medicine  or  not, 
is  a  matter  of  dispute  among  the  schools.  But  the  motto 
holds  the  secret  of  success  in  other  departments  of 
life;  and  it  is  in  obedience  to  this  that  the  church  is  to- 
day sending  the  young  man  to  save  the  young  man.  The 
difficulty  with  the  church  heretofore,  in  her  dealings  with 
young  men,  is  that  she  has  not  understood  them,  and  so 
has  failed  to  adapt  her  work  to  them. 

The  average  young  man,  I  may  say  the  normal 
young  man,  is  a  creature  of  his  own  kind.  At  a  certain 
period  in  his  later  boyhood,  two  marked  movements 
take  place  in  him :  he  begins  to  develop  a  certain  form 
of  physical  manhood,  and  to  become  conscious  of  him- 
self. Both  are  to  be  marvellous  factors  in  his  future  use- 
fulness and  happiness,  provided  they  are  carefully  han- 
dled. They  have  generally  not  been  carefully  handled, 
hence  manhood  has  been  so  often  blighted  in  the  bloom. 
At  this  stage  of  his  life  the  young  man  is  not  character- 
ized for  his  taste  for  religious  things.  It  is  other  ele- 
ments in  him  that  are  coming  forward.  He  has  an  ex- 
alted opinion  of  himself;  this   is  said  in  all  seriousness, 


106  Dying  at  the   7op, 

for  it  is  true.  He  thinks  much  about  his  shape,  his  pos- 
tures, his  dress,  his  toilet.  He  is  noisy  about  his  home, 
on  the  streets,  and  in  the  school;  he  sings,  shouts, 
says  silly  things,  and  does  silly  things.  He  is  a*' hale 
fellow  well  met";  fastens  himself  to  his  companions,  and 
so  they  move,  like  fish  in  shoals.  He  is  sensitive  and 
proud,  takes  offense  easily,  and  demands  more  than  or- 
dinary attention  from  others.  Just  at  this  point  you 
may  make  a  friend  of  him  for  life  by  a  tip  of  the  hat,  or 
a  foe  by  an  unintentional  slight.  One  thing  the  young 
man  loves  is  "  fun";  he  must  have  it,  and  he  will  have  it, 
as  the  thirsty  man  will  have  water;  if  not  furnished  him 
at  home  he  will  find  it  elsewhere ;  if  not  provided  in 
healthful  places  of  resort,  he  is  likely  to  take  it  in  sinful 
places. 

Now  in  all  these  traits  the  young  man  is  simply  his 
natural  self;  those  of  us  who  are  mature,  know  that 
it  is  a  perfect  description  of  ourselves  at  that  period  of 
life.  It  is  all  right ;  God  is  doing  His  own  work  in  the 
young  man,  but  we  grow  impatient  with  him,  meet  him 
with  a  laugh  and  a  jest,  mortify  him,  and  so  alienate  him 
from  the  ways  of  progressive  manhood.  The  proper  thing 
for  us  to  do  is  to  take  him  just  as  he  is,  and  adapt  our 
methods  to  him ;  but  this  is  a  thing  we  have  not  done.  The 
pulpit  and  Sunday  school  books  have  dosed  him  with 
lectures  on  sobriety  and  propriety  until  he  is  sick  of  them. 
They  have  depreciated  and  abused  his  amusements  till  he 
thinks  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  not  a  place  for  the 
merry-hearted,  and  so  he  prefers  to  stay  out  of  it.  They 
keep  thundering  away  at  him  for  going  to  places  of 
doubtful  resort,  and  have  no  better  places  of  resort  to 
offer  him. 

The  church  is  coming  to  her  senses.  We  have 
found  that  the  best  person  to  send  for  a  young  man,  is 
a  Christian  young  man.  This  Christian  young  man  has 
not  gotten  over  all  the  freshness  of  his  early  manhood 
himself  He  still  has  a  good  opinion  of  himself,  but  that 
is  one  of  his  qualifications  for  his  task.  He  still  possesses 
his  love  for  fun,  and  that  is  another  qualification.     He 


Dying  at  the   Top.  107 

wants  his  devotional  services  short  and  sweet,  and  that 
is  another.  He  still  retains  his  aspirations  as  a  gym- 
nast and  athlete.  The  bicycle  and  football  are  yet  in 
his  visions.  His  piety  is  robust  and  full  of  manly  vigor. 
Half  the  devotion  of  a  religious  song  lies  in  singing  it 
loud  and  strong.  He  goes  at  his  religion,  as  well  as  at  his 
dumb-bells,  with  a  "  Hurrah,  boys,  hurrah  !"  He  is  just 
the  man  for  the  hour.  Like  Queen  Esther,  he  has  come 
to  the  kingdom  for  such  a  time  as  this.  We  have  said 
to  him,  "go  " ;  and  look  at  the  splendid  association  he  has 
already  built  up;  at  the  grand  temples  for  young  men 
that  he  has  erected;  and  the  sources  of  clean,  hallowed, 
christianized  entertainment  and  pastimes  he  has  pro- 
vided. The  "Year  Book  of  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Associations"  of  1888,  was  a  revelation  to  me.  As 
I  looked  over/ its  pages,  and  saw  how  these  Associations, 
manned  by  as  consecrated  worshipers  as  any  the  church 
possesses,  has  already  gotten  hold  of  thousands  of  our 
young  men,  in  the  hearts  of  merchandise,  in  the  work- 
shops, and  along  our  rivers  and  railways,  and  have  sur- 
rounded them  with  the  brightness,  cheer  and  refinement 
of  elegant  homes,  I  felt  the  country  is  safe.  It  is  an 
illustration  of  the  natural  perversity  of  our  nature  that 
such  a  movement  for  the  reclaiming  of  youn^  men 
should  be  suspected  and  quietly  opposed  by  some  good 
people.  But  it  has  been  the  fate  of  all  reforms.  This, 
like  others,  will  win  its  way  to  triumph,  and  the  day  is 
not  far  distant  when  Christian  men  and  philanthropists 
will  be  just  as  zealous  in  having  an  elegant  Young" 
Men's  Christian  Association  building  in  every  town  and 
city,  as  in  having  the  school  house  and  church. 

How  can  I  better  close  this  chapter  than  in  Whit- 
tier's  words,  taken  from  "The  Human  Sacrifice": 

"As on  the  white  sea's  charmed  shore 

The  Parsee  sees  his  holy  hill. 
With  dunnest  smoke — clouds  curtained  o'er, 
Yet  knows  beneath  them  evermore, 

The  low  pale  fire  is  quivering  still  ; 
So,  underneath  its  clouds  of  sin, 

The  heart  of  man  retaineth  yet 


108  Dying  at  the  Top* 

Gleams  of  its  holy  origin ; 

And  half  quenched  stars  that  never  eet, 
D  m  colors  of  its  faded  bow 

And  early  beauty,  linger  there, 
And  o'er  its  wasted  desert  blow 

Faint  breathings  of  the  morning  air, 
O,  never  yet  upon  the  scroll 
Of  the  sin-stained,  but  priceless  soul 

Hath  Heaven  inscribed  "Z?«?5/ai>," 


CHAPTER  VII. 


A  WORD   TO   THE  WISE. 

Appliances  and  organizations  are  important  factors 
in  the  work  of  reform,  but  they  will  prove  powerless,  and 
hope  will  be  turned  to  despair,  if  our  young  men  remain 
unwilling  to  do  something  for  themselves.  Their  own 
wil'ls  are  the  sovereigns  in  the  shaping  of  their  destiny. 
We  can  transform  marble  without  its  consent,  but  not 
a  soul.  A  soul  is  not  infinite,  but  it  can  thwart  the 
Infinite  by  simply  saying  "I  will  not."  Young  men 
must  cast  aside  the  foolish  excuses  they  make  for  their 
wrong-doing,  and  turn  toward  the  future  with  serious 
purposes  and  manly  resolves.  It  is  a  childish  plea  that 
I  hear  so  many  make — we  are  so  greatly  tempted,  and  it 
is  hard  to  resist.  Of  course  they  are  greatly  tempted; 
but  who  is  there  that  is  not  ?  Temptations  have  always 
existed  and  they  have  never  come  easy  to  any  one. 
Adam  and  Eve  found  them  in  the  very  Garden  of  Eden. 
Christ  met  Satan  in  the  wilderness  where  He  had  retired 
for  meditation.  The  pious  Monks  of  the  Primitive 
Church  retired  into  the  caves  and  the  wilderness,  to  es- 
cape the  fascinations  of  social  life,  only  to  find  that  retire- 
ment had  its  own  allurements,  and  could  transform  the 
unwary  into  the  corrupt  and  vicious.  It  is  ver>^  doubtful 
whether  the  reasons  for  a  youno^  man's  fall  are  any 
greater  to-day  than  they  have  ever  been.  There  may 
be  in  our  age  greater  blandishments  thrown  around 
the  tempter  than  at  any  former  period.     He  is  dressed 


Dying  at  the   Top,  109 

Tietter;  Is  better  educated;  sings  better;  plays  better; 
understands  better  the  arts  of  approach  and  persuasion; 
lives  amid  more  gaudy  surroundings,  and  fares  more 
sumptuously  every  day.  But  virtue  is  also  better 
adorned,  and  more  easy  and  graceful  in  her  appeals. 
There  never  were  such  inducements  as  now  for  a  young 
man  to  resist  temptation  and  make  a  nobleman  of  him- 
self 

The  avenues  open  toward  position  and  influence  are 
innumerable.  In  this  country  all  these  avenues  are  free. 
Boys  from  the  most  humble  homes  and  employments  are 
rising  every  day  to  sway  the  scepters  of  our  country. 
Rail-splitters,  and  canal-boatmen,  and  tanners,  are  be- 
coming Presidents.  The  sons  of  blacksmiths,  and  car- 
penters, and  printers  are  being  transformed  in  a  single 
generation  into  clergymen,  and  lawyers,  and  editors  of 
distinction.  Within  a  quarter  of  a  century  even  slaves 
have  sprung  into  prominence,  and  from  high  places  are 
helping  give  shape  to  the  education  and  to  the  laws  of 
the  land.  With  a  future  of  such  glorious  promise,  the 
young  man  who  turns  aside  into  the  life  of  the  sinning^ 
and  takes  pleasure  in  the  resorts  of  the  fallen,  is  supreme- 
ly foolish.  It  is  never  manly  to  submit  to  temptation,  no 
matter  how  strong  it  may  be,  and  no  matter  how  dark 
the  future  may  seem.  A  noble  soul  resists  evil  because  it 
is  right  to  do  so,  and  the  more  determined  his  enemy  is  to 
subdue  him,  the  more  resolute  is  he  to  overcome.  Daniel 
in  Babylon  was  in  exile;  he  was  a  child  of  a  hated  race; 
the  worshiper  of  a  despised  divinity.  He  was  in  the 
hands  of  a  tyrant  who  could  take  life  at  his  pleasure.  But 
what  cared  he  for  all  this  ?  He  determined  to  separate 
himself  from  the  splendid  vices  of  a  splendid  court  and 
did  it.  He  did  not  plead  the  power  of  the  temptation. 
It  was  the  strength  of  the  inducement  that  proved  the 
strength  of  the  young  man.  He  could  say  No  to  a 
king,  for  he  was  more  than  a  king ;  he  was  a  child  of  God. 
To  such  a  young  man  even  fire  has  no  terror,  and  a  lion's 
mouth  is  only  a  way  to  freedom.  Oh,  for  more  of  the 
heroism  of  the  Hebrew  captive  among  the  young  men 


110  Dying  at  the  l^op. 

of  our  day.  One  million  such  characters  would  trans- 
form our  country  in  a  single  generation,  and  make  us,  in 
private  and  public  life,  a  God-fearing  people. 

There  is  a  character  in  the  Old  Testament  which  I  have 
greatly  admired,  and  which  I  am  tempted  to  introduce, 
as  a  model  for  young  men,  in  the  closing  of  this  little 
work.  It  is  Joshua,  "a  young  man."  Joshua  stands 
out  as  one  of  the  three  great  men  in  the  dawn  of  the 
Hebrew  national  life.  The  others  are  Moses  and  Aaron. 
Of  the  three,  the  characterof  Joshua  is  most  symmetrical. 
Moses  smote  the  rock  instead  of  speaking  to  it  as  he 
was  commanded  to  do.  It  is  a  recorded  blemish  in  a 
marvellous  career.  Aaron,  while  Moses  was  in  the  mount, 
united  with  the  murmuring  people,  and  bowed  down  to 
the  golden  calf.  It  was  worse  than  a  blemish  —  it  was 
an  act  of  anarchy. 

In  the  life  of  Joshua  there  is  not  a  recorded  fault. 
He  is  one  of  the  most  pure  and  evenly-balanced  char- 
acters of  the  whole  Bible.  Nor  does  his  faultlessness 
arise  from  a  lack  of  strength,  for  he  has  all  those  sturdy 
positive  traits  that  make  him  a  successful  soldier.  He 
is  just  that  kind  of  a  man  who  finds  temptation  attrac- 
tive, and  who  stands  only  by  self-mastery. 

No  young  man  begins  life  as  low  down  as  did 
Joshua.  His  parents  were  Egyptian  slaves,  and  for 
more  than  forty  years  he  was  a  slave  himself.  The  rea- 
sons for  his  laying  violent  hands  on  himself  were  abun- 
dant, and  the  motives  for  his  not  doing  it  were  few. 
Yet  there  is  evidence  that  amid  all  his  discouragements 
and  hardships,  he  keeps  himself  as  free  from  the  contam- 
inations of  Egypt,  as  Daniel  did  afterward  from  those 
of  Babylon.  When,  in  tlae  Exodus,  Moses  desired  a  leader 
to  go  out  to  war  against  Amalek,  it  was  Joshua  that  was 
called  to  the  front ;  when  he  desired  "  a  young  man  "  to 
remain  by  his  side  as  his  private  counsellor,  it  was  Joshua 
that  was  called  to  be  his  "  minister. "  When  Israel  chose 
twelve  men,  heads  of  tribes,  to  spy  out  the  promised 
land,  it  was  Joshua  that  was  selected  to  represent  his 
tribe. 


.  Dying  at  the   Top.  Ill 

And  when  Moses  was  about  to  die,  who  should  be 
his  successor  but  Joshua.  Of  course  it  was  Joshua.  No 
one  dreamed  of  any  other  to  take  the  high  place  vacated 
by  death.  God  did  not  dream  of  any  other;  if  He  had 
selected  another,  the  people  would  have  said  they  could 
have  done  better  themselves.  In  every  crisis  moment, 
where  God  is  shaping  events,  the  best  man  gets  to  the 
front.  It  is  no  hap-hazard  selection.  God  chooses  His 
men  for  high  responsibilities,  just  as  men  choose  them. 
He  selects  those  who  have  been  tested  and  have  proven 
themselves  worthy. 

God  always  has  positions  for  the  young  men  who 
honor  Him  and  do  His  commandments.  The  fact  is,  all 
life's  honorable  positions  are  God's  places,  and  it  is  He 
that  is  laying  hands  on  men  to  fill  them.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  as  much  God's  man  as  was  Moses  or  Joshua. 
He  selected  him  for  a  critical  moment  and  a  critical  task. 
So  was  Grant  God's  man;  so  was  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 
The  average  young  man  of  to-day  thinks  God  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  success  in  life;  hence  it  is  he  keeps  away 
from  His  altar,  and  cares  nothing  for  the  "clean  hands" 
and  the  "pure  heart"  that  come  through  compassing  it. 

We  sometimes  speak  of  there  being  a  charm  in  these 
Joshuas.  Some  "divinity"  shapes  their  "ends"  that  is 
not  granted  to  most  men.  In  common  parlance  it  is 
called  "luck."  But  the  only  charm  and  luck  are  those 
that  are  at  the  command  of  every  young  man  who  is 
determined  to  make  the  best  out  of  himself.  It  is  the 
*' charm "  every  true  man  throws  round  his  fellow  men 
and  the  "luck "of  a, good  Father  in  Heaven  who  stands 
by  and  helps  every  man  who  does  nobly  to  help  himself. 
The  truth  is,  what  are  called  "lucky"  men  in  this  world 
are  not  often  the  successful  men.  Those  who  are  born 
of  wealthy  parents,  and  have  men  in  high  position  to  give 
them  a  favorable  start  in  life,  are  considered  the  favorites 
of  the  Goddess  of  Fortune.  But  when  one  calls  the  roll 
of  the  great,  it  is  remarkable  how  few  of  these  high-born 
young  men  respond.  Their  start  in  life  was  too  high  for 
them.    They  grew  up  the  pets  of  wealthy  households; 


112  Dying  at  the  Top, 

constant  indulgence  led  many  of  them  into  temptation, 
and  they  fell,  and  great  was  their  fall.  Many  who  suc- 
ceeded in  preserving  their  morals,  came  into  life  without 
self-reliance,  so  that  when  some  crisis  arose,  as  it  will 
arise  with  every  young  man,  in  which  he  must  stand  by 
his  own  strength,  they  failed  because  their  good  fortune 
made  them  weak.  Fortune,  the  fair  goddess,  seems  to 
favor  the  young  men  who  begin  life  at  the  foot  of  the 
ladder.  Certain  it  is,  at  least,  that  the  ladder,  whose  foot 
is  on  the  earth,  and  its  top  amid  the  clouds,  presents  the 
strange  sight  of  ascending  and  descending  columns. 
The  children  of  the  great  coming  down  and  the  children 
of  the  lowly  going  up,  the  first  becoming  last  and  the 
last  first.  Suchaconditionof  things  should  not  be.  Those 
who  begin  life  in  high  places  should  not  descend  simply 
because  they  have  had  the  assistance  of  others,  and  .they 
will  not,  when  they  learn  that  self-restraint  and  self-re- 
liance are  as  becoming  to  the  high-born  as  the  low-born. 
But,  at  the  present  stage  of  human  progress,  it  is  the 
fact  that  the  "  ups  "  of  one  generation  become  the  "  downs" 
of  the  next,  and  the  "  downs  "  the  "  ups." 

Gov.  Palmer  of  Illinois  was  once  a  country  black- 
smith; so  was  Robert  Collier  once  a  knight  of  the  anvil. 

Erastus  Corning  of  New  York  began  life  as  a  shop 
boy  in  Albany.  He  was  lame  and  so  could  do  no  very  hard 
work.  When  he  made  his  application  for  employment, 
he  was  asked,  "Why,  my  little  fellow,  what  can  you  do?" 
"Can  do  what  I  am  bid, "  was  his  reply,  which  secured 
him  the  place.  Senator  Wilson  of  Massachusetts  was  a 
shoe-maker;  Thurlow  Weed,  a  canal-boat  driver. 

Ex-Gov.  Stone  of  Iowa  and  Hon.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  both  sprang  from  the  homes  of  cabinet  makers. 

What  has  interested  me  most,  in  the  case  of  Joshua, 
is  the  secret  of  his  steady  rise  from  a  bondman  to  the 
position  of  the  leader  of  the  Hebrews.  The  secret  after 
all  is  no  secret  at  all.  It  is  what  has  made  all  Joshuas 
great.  It  is  what  will  make  all  our  young  men  success- 
ful if  they  are  willing  to  fall  into  line,  and  follow  the  coun- 
sel of  the  wise. 


Dying  at  the   Top.  113 

Joshua  kept  his  character  above  suspicion.  He  in- 
dulged in  none  of  the  social  extravagances  and  vices  of 
his  day,  held  no  loose  views  of  morality  that  led  him  into 
"  early  indiscretions,"  consorted  with  none  of  the  wild 
and  gay  young  fellows  around  him.  The  Bible  does  not 
tell  us  these  things;  but  we  know  they  must  have  been 
so,  for  they  are  always  true  of  the  men  who  march  with- 
out a  halt  from  the  lowly  beginnings  of  life  to  their 
glorious  endings.  It  is  the  height  of  folly  for  a  young 
man,  if  he  desires  to  succeed,  to  soil  his  reputation  by  any 
kind  of  wrong  doing.  A  spotless  character  is  the  very 
best  capital  with  which  to  begin  life.  It  is  a  thousand 
times  better  than  money:  for  money  may  fly  away 
in  a  day,  but  character  stays  for  life,  if  its  possessor  does 
not  choose  himself  to  destroy  it. 

Years  ago  Arthur  Tappan  was  prominent  as  a  mer- 
chant in  New  York  city.  He  was  equally  notorious  for 
his  opposition  to  slavery  and  for  his  personal  integrity. 
Rev.  E.  A.  Rand  in  the  Golden  Rule  represents  a  fellow 
merchant  of  Tappan  as  saying,  "If  Arthur  Tappan  will 
allow  his  name  to  be  put  on  my  store  and  will  sit  in  an 
arm-chair  in  my  counting  room,  I  will  pay  him  three 
thousand  dollars  a  year. "  Here  was  a  living  salary  for  a 
character.  Now,  character  is  within  the  reach  of  every 
boy.  He  need  not  spend  money  to  possess  it ;  he  need 
not  ascend  into  heaven  to  bring  it  down  nor  descend  in- 
to the  depths  to  bring  it  up.  It  comes,  it  grows;  it  is 
inevitable,  if  a  boy  will  begin  life  by  always  doing  right. 
It  will  not  be  a  question,  when  he  seeks  a  position, 
whether  men  will  respect  him.  That  is  settled  at  the 
start.  Character  is  always  respected;  even  those  who 
have  none  of  their  own,  bow  down  to  it. 

In  a  public  life  of  twenty-five  years,  I  have  met  hun- 
dreds of  young  men  who  could  not  find  a  place,  and  it 
was  no  wonder  to  me.  They  had  done  nothing  to  de- 
serve a  place;  indeed,  they  had  done  everything  to 
destroy  their  desert  for  position  by  smirching  their 
reputation  in  loose  ways  of  living.  Some  of  them  had 
done  wrong  on  the  "  sly  "  and  seemed  surprised  that  they 


114  Dying  at  the  Tof, 

were  so  well  known.  They  found  out  to  their  sorrow 
that  all  sinning  works  to  the  surface  Hke  the  needle  that 
is  buried  in  the  flesh.  In  these  twenty-five  years,  I  have 
never  met  a  worthy  young  man  who  was  long  without 
a  position.  The  world  needs  him  and  will  use  him  when 
he  is  ready.  Positions  seem  to  spring  out  of  the  soil 
for  him.  He  can  scarcely  tell  how  they  come;  but  they 
come  and  stay  with  him.  It  is  surprising  how  many 
men  of  large  possessions  and  extensive  responsibilities 
are  on  the  still-hunt  for  young  men  of  character.  I  have 
even  known  of  detectives  being  sent  out  to  make  in- 
quiries concerning  persons  whose  fame  had  extended  be- 
yond the  limits  of  their  own  home. 

Admiral  Farragut's  estimate  of  a  good  character  as 
a  business  investment  may  be  learned  in  the  account  he 
gives  of  his  start  in  life.     He  says: 

"  My  father  was  sent  down  to  New  Orleans  with  the 
little  navy  we  then  had,  to  look  after  the  treason  of  Burr. 
I  accompanied  him  as  cabin  boy,  and  was  ten  years  of 
age.  I  had  some  qualities  which  I  thought  made  a  man 
of  me.  I  could  swear  like  an  old  salt;  could  drink  a 
stiff  glass  of  grog  as  if  I  had  doubled  Cape  Horn,  and 
could  smoke  like  a  locomotive.  I  was  great  at  cards, 
and  fond  of  gaming  of  every  shape.  At  the  close  of  the 
dinner,  one  day,  my  father  turned  everybody  out  of  the 
cabin,  locked  the  door,  and  said  to  me:  *  David,  what  do 
you  mean  to  be?*  *  I  mean  to  follow  the  sea.'  '  Follow 
the  sea  !  Yes,  be  a  poor  miserable  drunken  sailor  before 
the  mast,  kicked  and  cuffed  about  the  world,  and  die  in 
some  fever  hospital  in  a  foreign  clime.'  *  No,*  I  said; '  I'll 
tread  the  quarter-deck,  and  command  as  you  do.'  *  No, 
David,  no  boy  ever  trod  the  quarter-deck  with  such 
principles  as  you  have,  and  such  habits  as  you  exhibit. 
You'll  have  to  change  the  whole  course  of  your  hfe  if 
you  ever  become  a  man.' 

"My  father  left  me  and  went  on  deck.  I  was 
stunned  by  the  rebuke,  and  overwhelmed  with  mortifi- 
cation. *  A  poor,  miserable,  drunken  sailor  before  the 
mast,  kicked  and  cuffed  about  the  world,  and  to  die  in 


Dying  at  the   Top.  115 

«ome  fever  hospital!  That's  my  fate,  is  it?  I'll  change 
my  life,  and  change  it  at  once.  I  will  never  utter  another 
oath;  I  will  never  drink  another  drop  of  intoxicating 
liquor;  I  will  never  gamble.*  And  as  God  is  my  witness, 
I  have  kept  those  three  vows  to  this  hour.  Shortly 
after  I  became  a  Christian.  That  act  settled  my  destiny 
for  time  and  eternity." 

In  the  records  of  his  life,  I  see  no  evidence  that 
Joshua  was  ever  impatient  with  his  position,  nor  rest- 
less because  he  could  not  advance  more  rapidly.  With 
liim,  his  successive  promotions  came  slowly.  He  was 
about  forty-five  years  old  before  he  became  a  free  man. 
It  is  at  this  age  that  he  is  still  called  "a  young  man." 
For  thirty-nine  years  longer,  he  was  content  to  serve  in 
Subordinate  positions.  The  crowning  glory  of  his  life- 
time,— his  succeeding  to  the  place  held  by  Moses, — came 
to  him  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-four  years. 

In  our  era  there  are  few  who  consider  themselves 
** young  men"  at  forty-five.  By  that  time,  many  are 
dead;  many  who  live  are  worn  out,  and  arc  the  wrecks 
of  their  former  manhood.  Well  preserved  men  are  not 
yet  in  their  prime  at  fifty.  I  have  been  told  that  in 
England  sixty  is  considered  the  age  at  which  the  climax 
of  one's  powers  is  reached;  that  after  that,  this  high 
state  of  ability  is  maintained  till  seventy-five,  when  there 
begins  a  graceful,  honorable  decline  of  from  five  to  ten 
years.  This  gives  a  young  man,  starting  in  business,  a 
long  period  in  which  to  accumulate  wealth  and  glory. 
But  the  average  young  man  is  not  v/illing  to  wait.  He 
wants  to  go  up  with  a  rush.  Tell  him  that  he  may  still 
be  a  poor  man  at  forty-five,  and  he  will  give  up  in  de- 
spair. Life  will  not  be  worth  living.  He  wants  to  get 
married,  and  how  can  he  keep  a  wife  until  he  has  an  in- 
dependent income.  The  place  he  has  started  in  is  too 
humble;  it  does  not  pay  him  a  sufficient  salary;  he  can- 
not meet  his  social  expenses  on  his  income.  He  grows 
restless,  and  because  reckless,  unreliable;  his  employer 
ceases  to  trust  him,  and,  instead  of  rising,  he  is   in   the 


116  Dying  at  the  Top, 

condition  of  the  dog  in  the  fable,  which  lost  the  meat 
in  his  mouth  by  trying  to  grasp  its  shadow  in  the  water. 

A  little  common  sense,  and  a  little  more  content- 
ment, will  reveal  to  the  young  man  in  a  lowly  station, 
that  promotion  need  not  be  so  tardy  as  he  suspects.  If 
there  are  twenty  persons  between  him  and  the  place  in 
the  establishment  which  he  covets,  he  will  find,  if  he 
waits,  that  not  the  half  of  them  will  be  patient  for  ad- 
vancement, but  will  disappear  in  pursuit  of  better  places, 
so  that,  at  the  start,  there  are  really  not  ten  men  who 
stand  in  front  of  him.  Of  these  few,  the  older  ones,  in 
time,  will  either  retire  or  die,  and  their  positions  must  be 
filled.  Promotion  is  certain,  if  one  is  only  patient :  and 
it  will  come  often  and  be  great,  if  he  will  not  think  he 
must  grow  old  at  fifty,  and  must  retire  from  business  at 
fifty-five. 

As  I  look  over  the  lives  of  eminent  men,  I  find  that 
the  vast  majority  of  them  never  reached  the  climax  of 
their  success  till  comparatively  late  in  life. 

Samuel  Morse  was  over  fifty  years  old  before  he 
could  persuade  the  Arnerican  people  that  there  was  any- 
thing in  his  proposed  Telegraph. 

Buffon  was  forty-two  before  he  published  his  "Nat- 
ural History."  The  height  of  his  fame  as  a  Naturalist 
was  not  reached  till  he  was  over  sixty;  and  at  seventy 
he  was  still  hard  at  work  on  his  "  Epochs  of  Nature."  He 
gives  the  secret  of  his  success  when  he  says :  "  Genius 
is  Patience'' 

William  Carey  was  still  a  cobbler  at  thirty;  at  forty 
he  had  not  yet  made  himself  master  of  the  Sanskrit  and 
Bengalee.  At  the  time  of  life  when  many  want  to  re- 
tire, he  was  advancing  to  a  professorship  in  the  College 
of  Fort  William,  and  to  the  glory  of  being  the  transla- 
tor of  the  Scriptures  into  several  oriental  languages. 
When  asked  to  explain  how  he  ever  rose  from  the  bench 
of  a  shoemaker  to  become  a  scholar,  he  replied :  "/  can 
plodr 

The  fame  of  Benjamin  Franklin  did  not  begin  to  be 
world-wide  till  he  was  fifty.     He  was  seventy  years  old 


Dying  at  the   7 op,  117 

before  he  had  the  honor  of  appending  his  name  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  He  was  eif^hty-two  be- 
fore he  became  a  delegate  to  the  Convention  called  to 
form  the  Federal  Constitution.  When  he  died  at  eighty- 
four,  twenty  thousand  people  assembled  to  do  honor  to 
his  remains  ;  while  everywhere,  in  Europe  and  America, 
the  highest  eulogiums  were  uttered  in  his  memory.  The 
secret  of  his  success  was  a  simple  one.  He  gave  it 
thus:  '^My  rule  is  to  go  straight  on  in  doing  what  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  rig  J  it,  leaving  the  consequences  to  Prov- 
idence!' 

The  great  element  in  the  building  up  of  Joshua's 
character  was  his  faith  in  God.  This  faith  was  more  to 
him  than  a  simple  salve  to  save  his  soul,  or  a  couch  on 
which  he  might  rest  easy  in  his  death.  It  was  an  in- 
dwelling and  inspiring  force,  and  served  him  in  all  the 
movements  of  his  life.  It  was  this,  more  than  anything 
else,  that  made  him  honorable  and  reliable  in  positions 
of  trust.  Duty  was  done  under  the  high  motive  that 
it  pleased  God.  His  faith  made  him  patient  and  con- 
tented, for  it  taught  him  that  the  Lord  was  his  Shepherd, 
and  would  care  for  him.  It  made  him  brave  in  battle, 
for  it  assured  aim  that  with  God  is  victory.  His  esti- 
mate of  the  Christian  Faith  as  a  help  in  the  ordinary 
pursuits  of  life,  is  given  in  his  address  at  the  close  of  his 
life:  "  One  of  you  shall  chase  a  thousand;  for  the  Lord 
your  God,  He  it  is  that  fighteth  for  you." 

The  presence  of  an  infinite  God,  binding"  Himself  by 
solemn  promises  to  protect  and  assist  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  Him;  the  coming  of  a  great  Divine  Spirit 
into  the  souls  that  are  open  to  receive  Him,  making  their 
bodies  the  "  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  are  the  most 
lofty  and  inspiring  thoughts  that  can  enter  the  minds  of 
men.  There  is  nothing  in  human  poetry  or  philosophy 
to  approach  it  in  sublimity.  Such  convictions,  so  lodged 
in  the  soul  as  to  possess  it,  must  expand  its  out-look, 
exalt  its  motives,  and  fill  it  with  enthusiasm,  as  noth- 
ing else  can. 

Yet  the  Christian  even  makes  little  out  of  his  faith 


118  Dying  at  ike  Top, 

as  an  every-day  working  power;  while  most  of  our 
young  men  never  dream  of  taking  it  into  account.  God 
is  no  more  to  them  than  if  He  had  no  existence;  and  His 
promises  fall  on  their  ears  like  the  babblings  of  child- 
hood. Indeed,  the  religious  life  seems  to  the  average 
young  man  as  a  silly,  unmanly  mummery;  it  is  beneath 
his  high  ideas  of  manhood.  He  places  himself  on  the 
back  seat  in  a  religious  meeting,  with  the  air  of  a  noble- 
man, deigning  to  halt  for  a  moment  to  look  at  some 
boyish  sport.  With  him,  it  is  "smart"  to  doubt,  and 
to  profess  infidelity.  Such  conduct  might  amuse  the 
wise  and  great,  if  it  were  not  so  serious.  It  becomes  a 
matter  of  the  deepest  sorrow,  when  we  look  on  it  as 
youth  throwing  out  of  its  preparation  for  life,  the  only 
element  that  will  insure  him  success,  and  the  only  Being 
who  can  save  the  soul. 

There  is  an  idea  prevailing  to-day  among  thousands, 
that  no  great  men  have  been  Christians.  Surely  those 
who  believe  such  a  thing  never  read,  for  some  of  the 
most  devout  of  Christ's  followers  have  come  from  the 
ranks  of  the  world's  great. 

Bismarck,  the  greatest  diplomatist  of  his  times,  is  a 
humble,  trusting  disciple  of  Christ. 

The  nineteenth  century  has  produced  no  greater 
philosopher  and  metaphysician  than  Sir  Wm.  Hamilton 
of  Scotland.  He  was  a  master  in  every  branch  of 
learning  that  he  touched.  Yet,  "  while  at  home  in  the 
learning  of  all  ages,  and  exciting  the  wonder  of  his  con- 
temporaries by  the  bold  sweeps  of  his  genius,  no  less 
than  the  vastness  of  his  attainments,  he  sat  as  a  little 
child  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  He  was  a  sincere  believer. 
There  is  an  exquisite  pathos  in  the  record  of  his  last 
hours,  that,  when  his  spirit  was  hovering  on  the  borders 
of  the  unseen  world,  just  ready  to  penetrate  its  mys- 
teries, he  was  heard  to  murmur:  'Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff, 
they  comfort  me.' " 

Shakespeare  wrote  in  nis  will :  "  I  commend  my  soul 
into  the  hands  of  God  my  Creator,  hoping,  and  assuredly 
believing,  through  the  only  merits  of  Jesus  Christ  my 


Dying  at  the    Top.  119 

Saviour,  to  be  made  partaker  of  life  everlasting,  and  my 
body  to  the  earth  whereof  it  is  made." 

These  few  words  from  the  late  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland's 
will,  reveal  his  grateful,  loving,  and  religious  spirit:  "I 
am  thankful  for  having  enjoyed  the  privileges  of  labor 
and  influence,  thankful  for  wife  and  children,  thankful  for 
all  my  success.  I  have  intentionally  and  consciously 
wronged  no  man,  and  if  I  know  my  own  heart,  I  have 
forgiven  all  my  enemies.  For  the  great  hereafter,  I  trust 
in  the  Infinite  Love,  as  it  is  expressed  to  me  in  the  life 
and  death  of  my  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 

Josiah  Quincy,  formerly  President  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, lived  to  be  ninety-two  years  of  age.  He  had  kept 
a  journal  for  many  years.  He  was  accustomed 
to  sit  in  the  morning  in  a  large  chair  with  a 
broad  arm  to  it,  which  served  as  a  desk,  upon  which  he 
wrote  his  diary.  July  ist,  1864,  he  sat  down  in  his 
chair  as  usual.  His  daughter  brought  his  journal.  He 
at  first  declined  to  undertake  his  wonted  task,  but  his 
daughter  urged  him  not  to  abandon  it.  He  took  the 
book,  and  wrote  the  first  verse  of  that  grateful  hymn  of 
Addison : 

•'When  all  thy  mercies,  O  my  God, 
My  rising  soul  surveys, 
Transported  by  the  view,  I'm  lost 
In  wonder,  love,  and  praise." 

The  weary  head  dropped  upon  the  bosom.  The 
volume  was  ended.     The  soul  had  fled. 

Daniel  Webster,  one  of  the  greatest  orators,  states- 
men and  constitutional  lawyers  of  the  age,  paid  the 
following  grand  and  noble  tribute  to  the  cause  of  our. 
Saviour:  "Religion  is  a  necessary,  an  indispensable  ele- 
ment in  any  great  human  character.  There  is  no  living 
without  it.  It  is  the  tie  that  connects  man  with  his 
Creator  and  holds  him  to  His  throne.  If  that  tie  is  sun- 
dered or  broken,  he  floats  av/ay  a  worthless  atom  in  the 
universe,  its  proper  attractiveness  all  gone,  its  destiny 
thwarted,  and  its  whole  future  but  darkness,  desolation 
and  death." 


120  Dying  at  the   Top. 

No  man  more  fittingly  adorned  the  United  States 
Senate  and  the  Vice  Presidency,  in  connection  with 
General  Grant,  than  Henry  Wilson  of  Massachusetts. 
The  conscientious  fidelity  to  principle  and  duty  which 
characterized  his  career  as  a  mechanic,  editor,  State  Sen- 
ator, Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs, 
and  as  reconstructionist  of  the  Southern  States,  until 
he  reached  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  his  country- 
men, was  conspicuous  in  all  his  philanthropic  and  re- 
ligious engagements.  He  belonged  to  the  highest  order 
of  nobility  God  has  on  earth,  and  remained  to  the  last 
one  of  His  pillars  in  the  temple  of  grace. 

Speaking  of  his  conversion,  he  used  these  words:  "I 
have  never  shielded  myself  by  in,fidelity,  nor  defended 
my  position  by  that  poorest  of  all  excuses,  the  faults  of 
professors.  ...  I  now  trust  that  in  answer  to  the 
prayers  of  a  departed  wife  and  other  friends  now  living 
I  have  found  an  abiding  peace.  I  would  not  exchange 
the  hope  I  have  for  any  earthly  honors.  I  have  enjoyed 
more  assurance  and  peace  during  the  last  week  than  in 
any  other  period  of  my  life.  I  give  myself  and  all  I  have 
and  hope  for  to  my  Lord  and  Master.  And  if  there  has 
been  anything  kept  back,  I  pray  it  may  be  shown  me." 

A  gentleman  who  enjoyed  a  somewhat  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  Wendell  Phillips,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  but  had  not  met  him  for  some  years,  gives  the  fol- 
lowing incident  in  the  Boston  WatcJunan:  "  Renewing 
the  acquaintance  upon  my  return,  I  sought  an  interview 
within  the  past  twelve  months  for  the  express  purpose 
of  learning  his  religious  views.  I  opened  the  conversation 
by  saying  to  him  frankly  that,  in  my  absence,  I  had 
heard  him  quoted  as  skeptical  as  to  the  claims  of  Christ 
and  His  teachings,  and  asked  of  him  as  a  friend,  his 
statement  of  his  present  position  in  the  matter.  Turn- 
ing to  me  his  noble  face  and  winning  smile,  he  said :  *  I  be- 
lieve in  Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of  lost  men,  and  in  His  gospel 
as  the  revealed  will  of  God  for  man's  belief  and  acceptance. 
It  is  the  word  of  life  to  a  lost  world.' " 

The  late  Charles  Reade,  the  novelist,  it  is  said,  wrote 


Dying  at  the   Top.  121 

his  own  epitaph,  which  is  to  be  engraved  upon  a  plain 
slab,  to  be  placed  upon  his  grave.     It  is  as  follows: 

"Here  lie,  by  the  side  of  his  beloved  friend,  the  mor- 
tal remains  of  Charles  Reade,  dramatist,  novelist  and 
journalist.  His  last  words  to  mankind  are  on  this 
stone.  I  hope  for  a  resurrection,  not  from  any  power  in 
Nature,  but  from  the  will  of  the  Lord  God  Omnipotent, 
who  made  Nature  and  me.  He  created  man  out  of  noth- 
ing, which  Nature  could  not.  He  can  restore  man 
from  the  dust,  which  Nature  cannot.  And  I  hope  for 
holiness  and  happiness  in  a  future  life,  not  for  anything 
I  have  said  or  done  in  this  body,  but  from  the  merits 
and  mediation  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  has  promised  His  in- 
tercession to  all  who  seek  it,  and  He  will  not  break  His 
word.  That  intercession,  once  granted,  cannot  be  re- 
jected ;  for  He  is  God,  and  His  merits  are  infinite ;  a  man's 
sins  are  but  human  and  finite.  *  Him  that  cometh  to 
me,  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out.'  '  If  any  man  sin,  we 
have  an  advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the 
Righteous;  and  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.'" 

President  Porter  of  Yale  College  closed  one  of  his 
baccalaureate  sermons  with  these  words : 

"No  sign  of  our  times  is  more  depressing  than  that 
so  many  refined  and  thoughtful  young  men  so  readily 
accept  the  suggestions  of  doubt  and  take  a  position  of 
indifference  or  irresponsibility  in  respect  to  the  truths  of 
Christian  theism  and  the  personal  obligations  which 
they  enforce."  After  warning  his  hearers  against  these 
tendencies,  the  President  concluded :  "I  declare  to  you 
in  this  sacred  place,  as  you  look  back  upon  your  college 
life,  and  as  you  look  hopefully  forward  to  the  unknown 
future,  that  if  you  would  live  a  life  of  cheerful,  joyful, 
aud  buoyant  hopefulness,  you  must  live  a  life  that  is 
controlled  and  cheered  and  hallowed  by  God's  presence, 
and  by  a  constant  faith  in  His  forgiving  goodness.  All 
else  that  a  man  should  care  for  is  secured  you  by  this 
living  hope  in  the  living  and  ever  present  God.  All 
things  are  yours;  ye  are  Christ's  and  Christ  is  God's. 
These  are  the  traditions  of  this  place.      Under  these  in- 


122  Dying  at  the  Top, 

fluences  the  generations  have  been  trained  which  have 
gone  before,  each  testifying  that  the  truth  and  instruc- 
tions, of  which  perhaps  they  had  been  more  or  less  heed- 
less while  here,  have  come  again  to  them  with  living  power 
when  recalled  under  the  experiences  of  life.  So  may  it 
ever  be;  so  may  it  be  with  you.  With  these  wishes  and 
this  blessing  do  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

I  cHp  the  following  from  one  of  our  periodicals  of 
recent  date: 

"If  Christianity  cannot  stand  the  sifting  of  modern 
criticism  and  the  cool  common  sense  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  we  ought  to  find  it  abandoned  by  business  men 
who  have  no  interest  in  maintaining  a  religious  delusion, 
and  who  are  supposed  to  be  hard-headed  and  keen  in 
the  detection  of  imposture.  But  a  census  taken  in  the 
city  of  Minneapolis  shows  that  of  the  three  hundred  and 
ninety-one  owners  and  officers  of  the  eighty-two  largest 
business  concerns,  two  hundred  and  eighty-six  are  pro- 
fessing Christians,  ninety-four  are  favorable  to  Christian- 
ity, and  eleven  are  opposed  to  it ;  or,  putting  it  differently, 
three  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  are  opposed  to 
Christianity,  twenty-four  per  cent,  are  favorable,  and 
seventy-three  per  cent,  are  personally  believers  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Similar  inquiries  in  other  cities  show 
similar  results.  The  one  who  says  that  Christianity  is 
losing  its  hold  on  *  practical  men  '  does  not  know  what 
he  is  talking  about. " 

These  numerous  instances  are  given  in  hope  that 
the  young  men  who  may  read  them  may  be  convinced 
that  it  is  altogether  consistent  with  the  highest  man- 
hood and  the  proudest  attainments  for  them  to  be 
Christians. 

At  one  hundred  and  ten  years  of  a^^e  Joshua  died. 
It  is  always  intensely  interesting  to  know  how  great 
men  die;  and  to  see  whether  the  philosophy  of  their 
lives  support  them  to  the  close.  The  belief  that  one 
cannot  die  with,  is  a  poor  one  to  live  with.  It  shakes 
the  faith  of  the  sceptic  in  the  theories  of  Voltaire,  when 
he  learns  that  the  old  scoffer  in  his  last  sickness,  made 


Dying  at  the  Top.  123 

a  profession  of  faith  in  God,  and  died  in  the  membership 
of  the  Catholic  church. 

Who  wants  to  commit  himself  to  the  infidelity  of 
Hume,  the  English  historian,  when  he  finds  him  closing 
his  earthly  career  with  "  I  am  affrighted  and  confounded 
with  that  forlorn  solitude  into  which  I  am  placed  by  my 
philosophy,  and  fancy  myself  some  uncouth,  strange 
monster,  who,  not  being  able  to  mingle  and  unite  in 
society,  has  been  expelled  all  human  commerce,  and  left 
utterly  abandoned  and  disconsolate?" 

The  death  of  Joshua  was  as  sublime  as  his  life. 
His  faith  in  God  was  never  more  triumphant.  It  had  led 
him  to  exclaim  on  the  battle-field,  as  he  took  God  at 
His  promise,  "Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon;  and 
thou,  moon,  in  the  .valley  of  Ajalon."  Now,  facing  the 
eternal  world,  it  brings  him  a  marvellous  repose.  Like 
a  man  starting  on  some  ordinary  mission,  he  says^ 
"  Behold,  this  day  I  am  going  the  way  of  all  the  earth.'* 
"  I  am  going ! "     Is  that  all  dying  is  ? 

Roscoe  Conkling  seemed  to  think  otherwise,  for  in 
his  eulogy  over  Oliver  P.  Morton,  delivered  in  the  senate 
chamber,  he  said : 

**  Death  is  nature's  supreme  abhorrence.  The  dark 
valley,  with  its  weird  and  solemn  shadows,  illumined  by 
the  rays  of  Christianity,  is  still  the  ground  which  man 
shudders  to  approach.  The  grim  portals  and  the  nar- 
row house  seem  in  the  lapse  of  centuries  to  have  gained 
rather  than  lost  in  impressive  and  foreboding  horror." 

Joshua  does  not  call  death  "  the  grim  portals";  he 
says,  "  it  is  the  wav  of  all  the  earth."  Earth's  ways  are 
not  hard  ways.  Ivo  man  "  shudders  to  aoproach"  them. 
First  the  sunshine,  then  the  spring;  first  the  spring, 
then  the  harvest;  first  the  harvest, then  the  gladness  of 
full  garners  and  gratified  homes.  First  the  showers, 
then  awakened  and  adorned  verdure.  First  the  day  for 
business,  then  the  night  for  rest.  First  childhood;  then 
manhood  and  womanhood;  then  marriage  and  home; 
then  an  honorable  and  peaceful  old  age.  These  are 
earth's  ways.     "  Going  "  in  them  is  a  constant  blessed- 


124  Dying  at  the  Top. 

ness.  If  dying  is  simply  "  going  the  way  of  all  the 
earth,"  then  it  is  like  all  Nature's  works,  a  consumma- 
tion— a  glorious  translation.  * 

Thus  it  is  faith  in  God  gives  confidence  and  repose 
as  one  enters  the  door  that  sooner  or  later  swings  open 
for  all.  It  comes  with  the  kindness  of  a  mother  "  who 
wraps  the  drapery  of  the  couch  "  around  her  weary  child, 
laying  him  "  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 


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